


Allegro

by PeachChapstick



Series: Avengers En Pointe [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Runaways (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Defenders (Marvel TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ballet, Ballet, Dancing, F/M, M/M, No Smut, Rivalry, dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:22:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28021602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachChapstick/pseuds/PeachChapstick
Summary: Natasha Romanov knows she's the best dancer in the ballet company, but she constantly has to prove herself against her rival, Elektra Natchios. When Nutcracker season comes along, the girls have to finally prove who's the best.
Relationships: Elektra Natchios/Bobby Saint, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Matt Murdock & Elektra Natchios, Matt Murdock & Natasha Romanov, Matt Murdock/Natasha Romanov
Series: Avengers En Pointe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2052474
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1 - Elektra

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I'm so glad to finally be posting within this universe again. The schedule will be a new chapter everyday leading up to Christmas for a total of 15 chapters. I'm really happy with this story, so I hope you enjoy!

Elektra Natchios was a cold-hearted bitch. She would probably steal candy from a baby, eat it in front of them, and then proceed to laugh about it. Something about her was just terrible. Was it a result of child neglect or over indulgent parents? Well, that was the big question of life, now wasn’t it. Real talk: Natasha was sick and tired of being compared to Elektra at every part of her career. Natasha was better than her, no questions asked. It was tiring being compared to someone so obviously below her. But this season, Nat knew that she could easily assert her superiority. After all, she did have an in with Tony.

Nutcracker season was a time Natasha had started dreading as soon as she outgrew her Clara days. It felt like a chore to dance the same few roles every year. For most young girls, they grew up dreaming of one day being the Sugar Plum Fairy. Natasha had already danced that role multiple times, so that wasn’t what she was auditioning for this year. This year she wanted to be the Snow Queen. Well, she didn’t just want it, she knew she would get it. The Snow Queen got to dance a beautiful and romantic pas de deux, which was one of Nat’s favorite things to perform. She knew Elektra would be going for Sugar Plum as always, so she had no real competition. She had Snow Queen in the bag.

Because she’d been dancing with the company as a principal dancer for quite a few seasons now, Natasha didn’t do much to prepare for her auditions. She ate her normal breakfast of two scrambled egg white, one banana, one cup of raspberries, a green juice, and an iced peppermint tea. Of course, she did a brief core workout and stretching session before making her way down to the bus stop.

On the short bus ride to the company, Natasha popped in her AirPods and listened to the Nutcracker soundtrack. She started with Chinese Dances, her resident favorite song of the ballet. The music in all the Tchaikovsky ballets was just amazing. As she listened, she mapped out the dances in her mind. Though, while listening to Chinese Dances all she could picture was the mushrooms from Fantasia.

Upon arrival at the company, Natasha went into her dressing room and unpacked her dance bag. She also took her street clothes off from on top of her leotard and tights. Normally she would put her wrap skirt on top, but they weren’t allowed for auditions. She began to warm up her feet at the barre before getting her pointe shoes ready. They weren’t new shoes, so there wasn’t that much work to be done. She tied her ribbons and dipped them in rosin before warming up en pointe.

After warming up, Natasha made her way into one of the rehearsal studios where the auditions were being held. This audition was only for the company members, not the little kids who would also be in the production. As she approached the rehearsal room, she spotted Bucky Barnes sitting on the floor outside the door.

Bucky was one of Natasha’s best and oldest friends. They both started at the company in the same month and immediately took a liking to each other. Bucky had this gorgeous, long, chestnut hair that was almost always pulled back into a bun. Today he was wearing a white t-shirt and black leggings, common attire for a male dancer’s audition. Perhaps the most striking feature about Bucky was his metal arm. It had been severely broken in some accident in high school to the point of amputation. But now it made for one badass appendage. 

“Hey, Bucky,” Natasha greeted, walking over to him.

Bucky smiled up at her from his seat on the floor. “Hey, Nat. Feeling ready to crush your audition?”  
“As always,” Natasha replied. 

Bucky got up off the floor and dusted off his legs. “I’m just relieved to know that I didn’t get fired. But I’m counting on Tony just making me a party guest now. He hates my guts for no reason.

The last ballet that they performed was Swan Lake. Natasha, of course, was Odette and Odile. Bucky was supposed to be Prince Seigfriend, but he got replaced by his understudy just days before the first performance. It was seemingly out of nowhere, but his understudy had just been doing a better job at rehearsals. Tony had insinuated that Bucky would be fired, but that did not happen. Natasha was, honestly, not surprised. Tony had just wanted Bucky to come back better and with a fire under him.

“Well obviously you don’t want to be a party guest, but what do you want to be?” Natasha inquired. 

“Well, I’d love to be the Nutcracker, of course,” Bucky answered. “But I’m really not expecting to get it. I’m hoping for Clara’s dad.”

“I want the Snow Queen. She’s just so beautiful and graceful, I feel like I could pull it off,” Natasha said.

“You could for sure pull it off. You know, when I was a kid, I always dreamed of getting some huge role in a ballet. But I think I always knew that leads were mostly reserved for girls. But then, my third year in the Nutcracker, I got Fritz,” Bucky stated.

“It’s amazing that you haven’t progressed past that level all of these years,” Elektra said from the other side of the door frame.

Elektra was a complete and utter bitch. She was one of the other principal dancers, but she certainly was not friendly. She always made sure it was her versus Natasha, and not in a friendly way. Natasha was, of course, better, but it was still annoying to deal with. Elektra was absolutely stunning with long, black hair always pulled up in a perfect bun and cheekbones and a jawline that could slice through a rock. As terrible of a person as she was, Natasha had to admit that she was gorgeous.

“Elektra, you talk a lot of shit for someone who’s always an understudy,” Natasha shot back.

“Oh please, you’re scared of me and you know it,” Elektra retorted.

Before Natasha could respond, the rehearsal room door swung open. Natasha walked inside, closely followed by Bucky and Elektra. In the front of the room was a long, white table with three people in front of it. In the middle was Tony. He basically oversaw everything that happened at the company. He had no real ballet experience or knowledge, but he had the ultimate casting decisions. On his right was Maria Hill, one of the ballet instructors. She was Natasha’s personal favorite, as she often instructed the pas de deux, her favorites. On Tony’s left was Peggy Carter, the ballet director. She was a dance teacher as well, but her main job was to oversee everything relating to the production. Based on the judging panel, Natasha felt pretty confident about getting her role.

Everyone from the company filled into the room, chatting amongst themselves. Natasha was never one to talk to others in the rehearsal room: she felt as though it was unprofessional. Because everyone was a company member, they didn’t get any time to warm up. It was assumed that everyone had come early and was already ready to go.

Tony stood up from his chair and walked to the center of the room, glancing around at all the company members.

“Well, it looks as though we’ve reached Nutcracker season again, now doesn’t it?” Tony stated, pacing around the front of the room. A few company members laughed at that statement.

“As always, we do have your requests as to what part you want. Of course, I do completely disregard that. We’re looking for talent, regardless of your preferences. We’re going to begin by doing a combo at the barre, followed by a combo at center. After that, we will be breaking you down into smaller groups to better assess your individual talents. Now, Miss Maria will take over to lead the exercises,” Tony lectured.

Natasha made her way to the front of the room and stood at the very front of the middle barre. She wanted to make sure that she was easily seen. Through the mirror, she could see that Elektra took the spot next to her. 

Maria got up and stood at the front of the room, right in front of Natasha. “I’ll be conducting this like any other class. We’re looking for technique mainly. In the further auditions we’ll focus more on the musicality and expression. Do your best to keep up and look nice if you want a decent role,” she stated.

The class began with plies, as they often did with Maria. Natasha stared herself down in the mirror, trying to ignore her surroundings. If she glanced around, she’d likely see her competition and get thrown off her game. This wasn’t a problem for the plies, tendus, or rand de jambes. Where it did become an issue, however, was the adagio.

“Now, we’re going to do develope for four counts, pique arabesque, arabesque balance, develope side, plie rond de jambe to arabesque, reverse, pique up, arms in fifth, lower down, develope side, plie rond de jambe, plie on four, step, pique balance, develope side, rand de jambe into grande rand de jambe, fifth, and reverse.”

It was the end of their barre audition, so Natasha’s eyes began to wander along the mirror. She looked at everyone, but her eyes kept flickering back to Elektra. As she watched, her piques were even higher than Natasha’s. The rest of the combination, Natasha’s eyes were glued on Elektra, making sure that she was doing better. She saw Elektra smirk at her through the mirror. She knew exactly what she was doing.

“Now clear the barres away so we can begin in center,” Tony instructed from his seat. 

All the dancers grabbed the barres they were at and moved them to the sides of the room. 

“You might want to work on your flexibility if you want to stay a principal,” Elektra hissed at her as they set the barre down.

Natasha didn’t respond. She had a strict no-talking policy at auditions. Besides, she didn’t have anything to say to that. Natasha had impeccable flexibility and flawless technique. Her mom had shipped her off to the Vaganova school at a young age and it showed. Elektra had done, what, a few Joffrey summer intensives? She didn’t even have half of the training Natasha did. It was obvious to anyone who saw them. 

“Remember, we will be splitting you up into smaller groupings after this. There you will be placed against those vying for the same parts as you. This is not the day to be lazy,” Peggy said from her seat, scribbling down notes even as she spoke. 

Natasha was, quite frankly, distracted during their entire center exercise. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Elektra had said and looking at what Elektra was doing. All her thoughts were replaced with thoughts of her worst enemy.

The audition was over before Natasha even realized it. They had an hour before they would start the smaller group auditions, so Natasha decided to hang out in her room and just wait to see who would stop by. She knew everyone in the company quite well, it was inevitable that at least one person would want to chat about the auditions.

Natasha walked into her dressing room and turned on her fairy lights. She knew they were basic, but she felt like they made for a much cozier environment. She left on her outfit but slipped an oversized sweater on. Believe it or not, being warmed up quite literally included being warm. She wanted to be ready for whenever her audition group went. 

The vanity in Natasha’s dressing room had arguably the best mirror in the entire company building. She sat down in front of it and leaned into it, inspecting her face. Compared to Elektra, she felt so inferior. Well, when it came to beauty. Elektra had features that were sharp in all the right places and soft in all the right places. Natasha wasn’t ugly, per say, but she was nothing next to Elektra. 

“Hey,” Tony said, walking into Natasha’s room.

Natasha blushed and leaned away from the mirror. “Hi. Shouldn’t you be consulting with Maria and Peggy right now?”

“They’re just choosing groups, that’s boring to me,” Tony stated.

“How did you feel it went?” Natasha asked.

Tony leaned against the door frame. “Good overall. Bad for you. What happened out there in center? I mean, you were still better than everyone else, but you can do better than that, Tasha. I know you could do that combo in your sleep, and you danced like you were doing it in your sleep.”

Natasha flushed. She had no idea that her performance was so obviously off. She had felt like she did decently.

“I’m sorry, Tony. I don’t know what was going on. I was just distracted. It was like I was just going through the motions,” Natasha said.

“Go get some coffee or something, get into it. You’re not our only principal: your role isn’t secure,” Tony warned.

“I’ll run to Caribou. I’ll do better,” Natasha promised.

“Good, it’s what I expect from you,” Tony stated before walking out.

Suddenly the amount of pressure on her to do well was greater than ever. Tony explicitly said that she didn't have her role in the bag. That had never happened before. 

Natasha grabbed her wallet and walked out to the hallway, towards the vending machines. She had told Tony she was going to Caribou, but she didn’t want to have to take her pointe shoes off and then put them back in the span of an hour. She would just buy an energy drink or something.

When Natasha approached the vending machine, there was someone buying vitamin water. Karolina Dean. One of the principal dancers, and nicest people Natasha knew.

“Hey, Karolina,” Natasha greeted, walking over to her.

Karolina smiled at her. “Oh, hi, Nat. It’s good to see you. I was just buying a water, gotta stay hydrated.”

“I was going to get some caffeine, try to stay awake,” Natasha stated.

“That’s a good idea,” Karolina commented. “You looked amazing this morning, by the way. I’m sure you’ll get a great casting.”

“Awe, thank you. I could say the same thing about you,” Natasha responded.

“Maybe I’ll see you in the audition room later today?” Karolina said.

Natasha smiled at her. “Oh, I’m sure you will.”

Karolina turned and walked back to her dressing room as Natasha put her card into the vending machine. She bought a Starbucks caramel frappuccino in a bottle, figuring it was probably the best thing to wake her up. It felt like she was cheating on Caribou.

“Nat,” Natasha heard Bucky call from inside his dressing room, “Come in here quick.”

Sighing, Natasha walked into Bucky’s dressing room. She was scared about what was to come. Oftentimes Bucky was dramatic about things, which was not really what Natasha needed. She loved him more than anything, but it was just true. 

“What’s up?” Natasha asked as she entered his room.

“You have to see this,” Bucky stated, handing a vase of flowers to her.

“It’s… flowers?” Natasha questioned, smelling the roses.

“Steve had them sent here for me because of the auditions today,” Bucky gushed.

Steve was one of the trumpet players in the pit who had grown up as Bucky’s best friend. Now, they were in a pretty serious relationship. It was still relatively new, so Steve tended to do these cutesy things for him. Natasha remembered when Matt used to do that kind of thing for her. She thought it was absolutely adorable.

“”I’m so happy for you guys, you’re adorable together,” Natasha said, sitting down in the armchair in the corner of his room. 

“Don’t tell him I said this, obviously, but I think we’re probably going to move in together soon,” Bucky said.

“At your place or his? He has a roommate and your apartment is, no offense, quite crappy,” Natasha stated. 

“We want to get an apartment by yours,” Bucky answered. “We absolutely adore that place. Everything there is so clean and bougie.”

“It’s also not cheap. Matt makes enough money that we can afford it, but don’t expect it to be cheap,” Natasha advised. 

“We’ve both been saving. We’ll just have to see how it goes,” Bucky said.

Natasha was going to ask him about how they’d decorate their place together, but she was interrupted by a ruckus in the hallway. There was a lot of talking, laughing, and way too much squealing.

Bucky walked out to see what was going on with Natasha trainly closely behind him. A group of company members was surrounding a spot on the wall, presumably the audition groupings and times. It seemed a little early for it to be released, but maybe there were clear levels of dancers this season. Natasha waited for it to clear up before she approached it.

Confronted with the audition list, Natasha decided to look for Bucky before herself. Surprisingly, he was in a group with some principal male dancers. It wasn’t surprising because he was bad or anything, it was just evident that Tony had a strong distaste for him.

Skimming over the list, Natasha quickly found her name: at the very top because they would begin their audition on the hour. There were only two names on the line next to her own. Karolina was expected, she was gorgeous and amazing. Natasha was happy they got to audition together, they could push each other to their best. However, the other name made her feel the opposite. She knew she couldn’t dance her best with her in the room.

Natasha was going to have to audition with Elektra. 


	2. Chapter 2 - Elektra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elektra didn't know what Nutcracker role to audition for. She'd just audition for whatever Natasha wanted.

Natasha Romanov was so easy to mess with. When they had both just started at the company, Elektra was determined to befriend her. It quickly became obvious that Natasha didn’t want to be friends with her competition. It also became obvious that Nat was easy to rattle. And when Natasha was rattled, Elektra became more successful. Just one smirk or word could turn around Natasha’s whole attitude. Elektra loved the power it gave her.

Nutcracker auditions were never a big deal for Elektra. They happened every year and the show honestly bore her. The only reason she gave them effort was in hopes of beating out Nat for a good role. She didn’t even audition for any specific part, all she wanted was whatever Nat wanted.

When it was announced that Elektra, Nat, and Karolina were the three principals being considered for large roles (presumably Sugar Plum Fairy), Elektra was incredibly overjoyed. She’d already psyched out Natasha during the large group audition, it would be easy to do it again.

Elektra walked into the audition room with her head held high. She was the first of the three in there. She did a few brief stretches to make sure she was warmed up and ready to go. It wasn’t long before Natasha and Karolina came in. They walked in together, talking so quietly about something that Elektra couldn’t hear. They were probably talking about her: Natasha was obsessed with her.

“I think you all know why you’re here,” Tony, the company director, stated, standing in front of the trio. “We need a Sugar Plum. She’s a fan favorite, everyone loves her. It needs to be the most impeccable dance on that stage. Of course, we have other good roles for the two of you who don’t get it, but it needs to be done justice. Obviously Maria is here, obviously she is one of your instructors. I’d like to take over this audition. I want to see a variation from each of you, of your own choosing. Prove to us that you can do this.”

Elektra had had a repertoire of variations memorized since she was eight, this was no big deal. But what would be a variation to play to her strengths and show that she was better than Natasha? Oh, Esmeralda, of course. She could be strong and sexy, which was her strong point. And what was Natasha’s strong point exactly? Well, there wasn’t really a specific one. And if there was, Elektra could out-do it.

“We’d like to see Karolina perform first,” Peggy Carter said from her chair.

Natasha and Elektra both stepped to the side of the room, giving Karolina her space. Elektra didn’t have much experience with Karolina, but she knew she was a company favorite. She had that bubbly personality that the press loved, and of course she was talented. Elektra wouldn’t be too upset to lose a role to her. She didn’t know what variation she would perform, however. It could go either way, playing into her strong suit or vying for the Sugar Plum Fairy.

When the music started playing, Elektra didn’t notice the variation right away. It took about five seconds of performing for Elektra to realize that Karolina was performing the bridesmaid Don Quixote variation. It wasn’t the most popular variation out there, but it certainly fit Karolina. With the amount of leaps in it, Elektra wasn’t sure it was very competitive for Sugar Plum Fairy. Of course, Karolina wasn’t necessarily going for that role.

It was a short variation, so next thing Elektra knew, Maria was requesting that she perform her variation. She’d been performing Esmeralda since she could walk, so she breezed through it. It was no big deal for her. She played to her strengths and it showed.

“Well, now all that’s left is Natasha,” Maria stated. “Go ahead.”

Even more exciting than Elektra’s own performance was Natasha’s. She had no idea what she would pull out of her hat. Part of Elektra thought that she would just straight up perform the Sugar Plum variation. It would be a power move, which Nat loved to play.

This music Elektra immediately recognized. Natasha was performing Balanchine’s Emeralds, a bold choice. It was a gorgeous variation, but completely unexpected. Elektra noticed the judges looking up from their notes to watch more intently. So Elektra had failed at her job of psyching out Nat. She was doing better than ever. There was absolutely nothing that could be critiqued about her performance.

“Wonderful job, ladies. We won’t be able to release the official cast list until next week. The children auditions won’t even take place for a few days,” Peggy stated, getting up from her chair.

“But it wouldn’t be hard to convince me to give it to you ahead of time,” Tony commented, smiling at them.

The three girls all thanked their judges before promptly leaving the rehearsal room. All the top male dancers would be performing next, they didn’t want to take up their time.

“It was a little unusual for them to allow us to pick our own variations and just audition with that,” Karolina stated.

“Well I, for one, enjoyed it,” Natasha responded. 

“You enjoyed being able to dance in front of Tony, and nothing more,” Elektra remarked. “I saw you eyeing him the entire time. I won’t be surprised when you get your top role, you’ve slept your way there.”

Nat rolled her eyes at her. “Oh please, we both know that isn’t true. I wish you’d just let that go. Tony is my friend, it would be absolutely disgusting to sleep with him. But I know for a fact that you’d sleep with him if you got the chance: he just doesn’t want to sleep with you. Why can’t you just admit that I get roles because I’m good?”

This was exactly what Elektra thrived on. She did know that Natasha didn’t sleep with Tony, but she also knew that it got her fired up. The more fired up Nat was, the better roles Elektra could get. Though, it was a little too late now for that. But Elektra had a really solid performance, she didn’t doubt that she’d get a good role.

Since her auditions were over, Elektra decided that she’d just go home. She could take a studio and do some extra rehearsal, but she really wasn’t in the mood. She just wanted to go home and eat some food.

Elektra’s apartment was, unbeknownst to Natasha, in the same apartment building Matt and Natasha lived in. It was actually how she met Matt in the first place. She lived on the fifth floor and they lived on the second floor, so it wasn’t like their paths would ever really cross. The apartment complex was absolutely gorgeous: not to mention the fact that Elektra had a loft.

The walls were mainly exposed brick, so Elektra decorated with lots of greenery. Something about bricks and greens was just absolutely gorgeous. Everything in her apartment was quite minimalist. She had a sleek white couch and a white bookshelf with carefully color coded books. It looked like an apartment straight out of a style magazine. One of Elektra’s favorite things in life was to be as fancy as possible.

Because she was hungry, Elektra decided to drink one of her pre-made protein smoothies. She made about three smoothies in one batch and put the rest in her fridge. This was a peanut butter banana smoothie, a common flavor. Elektra never got very inventive with her flavors because she wanted to stick with what she knew she liked and what she knew was healthy. 

A well-guarded secret of Elektra’s was that she did, indeed, have a boyfriend. It seemed like a boyfriend made young women less marketable, so she didn’t really tell anyone. He worked for the government doing something Elektra wasn’t qualified enough to know about. Bobby Saint was his name. If she was being honest, she’d much rather have a boyfriend with a name that… wasn’t Bobby. But, you get what you get.

Elektra sat down on her couch with her smoothie and called Bobby. She could tell him all about the auditions.

“Hey, baby,” Bobby greeted, picking up his phone after the first ring.

Elektra smiled. “Hi.”

“What’s up? How was your audition?” Bobby asked.

“I think I did really well,” Elektra bragged subtly. “Probably better than Natasha. I hope I can beat her out this time.”

“Well why wouldn’t you? You’re certainly more talented than her,” Bobby assured.

“But it’s obvious that Tony strongly favors her, and he has the ultimate say in casting,” Elektra explained. “They’ve been friends for a long time, I don’t stand a chance against that.”

“I think they should cast based on talent, not who they like best,” Bobby stated.

“I mean, Natasha is talented. I can’t say she’s not good,” Elektra said.

“But not as good as you.”

“Why don’t you come over, darling? You know I don’t like talking on the phone.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

Bobby had brown eyes, brown hair, and a small amount of facial hair. He was gorgeous, of course. Something about him felt special to Elektra the first time they met. They were at a party. Not a getting drunk party - a full length gown party. He had looked so sophisticated in his suit and soon proved to be intelligent and well spoken. Elektra loved a man who could hold a conversation. 

When Bobby walked in, Elektra was still sipping her smoothie on the couch. He lived only about a block away, so it was always fast.

Bobby walked over to her and softly kissed her. “Hey there.”

Elektra smiled up at him. “I missed you.”

“I brought you something,” Bobby stated.

“I’m ready for it,” Elektra said.

Bobby held out a small box to her. Upon opening it, Elektra discovered three chocolate covered strawberries. They looked delicious. 

“Thank you, darling. This looks absolutely wonderful,” Elektra thanked. 

“I stopped by the chocolate shop this morning and they reminded me of you,” Bobby stated. 

This was why Elektra fell in love with Bobby in the first place. He was always a thoughtful and sweet guy. He always said that his love language was gift giving, but Elektra didn’t really believe in all that. Personality tests had no sort of scientific basis. It couldn’t be accurate from self-reporting. But she would never project that onto Bobby, that would be rude.

“I wish you worked for the company,” Elektra reflected, nibbling on a chocolate covered strawberry.

“You do? Why?” Bobby asked.

“We have some couples there and it just seems like a nice dynamic,” Elektra answered. “We’d definitely get to see each other a lot more frequently.”

Bobby suggested, “We could just move in with each other.”

Elektra blushed. “We could.”

The conversation of moving in with each other was dropped pretty much as soon as it had begun. It wasn’t that Elektra was uncomfortable with it, per say, but she also wasn’t comfortable with it. He stayed for the rest of the day, but the vibe was a little uncomfortable after the moving in stuff. The next day, there was company class in the morning. Elektra woke up early to workout and stretch before class, and have a smoothie, of course.

Elektra always made sure to leave extra early for the company, trying to ensure that Natasha wouldn’t see her. It wouldn’t be the end of the world for her to discover they lived in the same apartment complex, but it would surely be awkward. Because of this, she always got to the company about half an hour to forty five minutes before the first class or rehearsal.

When Elektra walked into the company, she could tell she wasn’t the first one to arrive. The lights were on in the halls and one of the rehearsal rooms had the door partially open with the lights on. Intrigued, Elektra peaked her head in through the door. Bucky Barnes, Natasha’s best friend, was rehearsing his jumps.

“Hello,” Elektra greeted, stepping into the doorway.

Bucky stopped and turned around. “Hi. Why are you here?”

Elektra shrugged. “I don’t know, I saw you in here, so I came in. I didn’t think anyone else would be here this early.”

“Neither did I. That’s why I come in early,” Bucky stated. 

“Your jete entrelace is looking very nice. Like, it looks better than most of the other male dancers here,” Elektra complimented.

Bucky blushed. “Thank you. Why are you being nice to me, this isn’t normal.”

“I don’t want to be mean to you: I don’t try to be mean to you. Natasha and I have a rivalry, you know how that is. You just get caught in the middle,” Elektra explained. 

“Well I don’t want to be caught up in it. So please stop being rude to me, it’s annoying,” Bucky stated. 

“I’ll do my best,” Elektra assured.

Genuinely, Elektra did not want to be rude to Bucky. She had nothing against him. In fact, she quite liked him. The issue was that it was so easy to use him to get to Natasha. She was more defensive when it came to herself than when it came to her friends. Bucky was very pleasant to work with and a good dancer. Elektra had danced with him at some Swan Lake rehearsals, and she felt he did an excellent job. Maybe it would be good for her to dance with him again. It was a non-harmful way to hurt Natasha.

Elektra slipped off her shoes and walked in towards Bucky. He gave her a weird look, but she was determined to dance.

"Remember that pas de deux combo from our summer intensive last year?” Elektra asked.

“I think so,” Bucky responded.

“Prove it,” Elektra challenged.

Dancing with Bucky for fun was one of the most freeing experiences Elektra had ever had. It felt as though she was flying. For a few minutes she was able to escape the outside world and just exist and dance.

“Wow,” Bucky exclaimed. “That was… amazing.”

“I think I may have found a new pas de deux partner,” Elektra said, smiling at him.

Coming from the doorframe was clapping. One person clapping. Elektra glanced over to find none other than Tony watching them. 

“I haven’t seen you guys dance together before,” Tony stated. 

“We did a few rehearsals together during Swan Lake, so this wasn’t our first time,” Bucky explained.

“It was stunning. Absolutely gorgeous. Any pas de deux classes in the future, you two are dancing together. No debate about it,” Tony commanded.

Elektra had no issue with that. In fact, she was glad he was forcing them to, that’s what she’d wanted. She didn’t want to dance with him just because it would bother Natasha, she just loved the way they could perform together. As Tony had said, it really was gorgeous.

“You don’t have to worry about any debate over that. I’d love to dance with her,” Bucky said.

Elektra smiled at him. “I feel the exact same way.”

“I’m going to keep this in mind for casting,” Tony said, walking out of the rehearsal room.

Well, now it was solidified: Bucky and Elektra would be casted as pas de deux partners.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for continuing to read and support! You have no idea how much it means to me. Stay tuned for tomorrow's chapter where Natasha sees and reacts to the cast list.


	3. Chapter 3 - Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha feels like Elektra is beginning to try to ruin her personal life, not just her work life. But it seems to be more than just a feeling.

Elektra Natchios was a sneaky bitch. Everything she did was to hurt Natasha. She didn’t understand how you could dedicate that much time of your life to someone else: someone else you didn’t even like, at that. When Natasha came into the company for class the morning after auditions, Elektra and Bucky were dancing the balcony pas de deux from Romeo and Juliet. Natasha couldn’t believe her eyes. Since when did Bucky and Elektra even get along? And why would Bucky even agree to that, Natasha was his best friend. Not wanting to cause a scene, Natasha walked into her dressing room and ignored the situation.

Natasha turned the lights on around her vanity and started to put her hair up into a bun. She was rushed to get to class this morning, so she didn’t have time to do it at home. Once she got to the company, she realized she had more time than she had thought. After about a can’s worth of hairspray, she was ready to go. There was still time before class started, so Natasha decided to warm up at her barre a little bit.

As she was doing some simple tendus, Natasha could hear someone come into her dressing room. She was praying it was Tony, or really anyone other than Elektra or Bucky. Sadly, it was Bucky.

“Good morning,” Bucky said, leaning against the door frame.

“Hey,” Natasha responded, hoping her voice sounded annoyed.

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

“I think you know,” Natasha stated harshly.

“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking,” Bucky said.

“Elektra,” Natasha said bluntly.

Bucky’s face flushed. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t like Elektra and Natasha just didn’t get along, Elektra was terrible to her. She went out of her way to be rude. Bucky was Natasha’s best friend. They even spent holidays together, with each other’s families. For Bucky to become friendly to Elektra was a massive betrayal. It showed that he didn’t care about the way Elektra treated her. It was a slap in the face.

“Listen, Elektra and I aren’t friends or anything close to that,” Bucky reasoned.

“Then why were you dancing together?” Natasha asked.

“I got here early so I could work on some of my jumps. I want big roles this year, you know? Jumps are pretty essential for that. Next thing I know, Elektra is in the studio. And she wanted to dance, too. So, we did some pa de deuxs, it really was not a big deal. We barely even spoke,” Bucky explained.

Natasha scoffed, “I can’t believe you’d do that to me.”

“I didn’t do anything to you. She practically forced me. I hate her as much as you do, Nat,” Bucky said.

“You could’ve said no,” Natasha said.

Bucky sighed. “You know what, I’m not going to fight with you over this. I honestly don’t like her. I don’t know how to convince you of that.”

Natasha and Bucky didn’t really speak the rest of the day. They tried a little, but Natasha was too annoyed with him to make it work. They only had one class that day, since Nutcracker audition results hadn’t even been posted yet. It was just a basic technique class, mostly at the barre and flat. It was fine, but Natasha was too focused on Elektra and Bucky to really get anything out of it.

Natasha got home to find Matt sitting on the couch. Normally he wouldn’t be home until at least five. This was definitely abnormal.

“You’re home early,” Natasha said, carefully slipping her shoes off at the door.

“I couldn’t focus at work: I came home,” Matt responded. 

“I’m sorry I’m home now. I’m sure I won’t help you focus,” Natasha said, leaning down and kissing Matt’s cheek.

“I don’t mind. It isn’t a huge deal. We just have a hearing next week but other clients kept coming in and it just… wasn’t working,” Matt said. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” Natasha sympathized. “A much less important and more petty thing happened to me today.”

“Tell me all about it,” Matt invited.

Natasha sat down next to him on the couch and leaned against him. “Well, when I got to the studio, I saw Elektra and Bucky dancing together. Not just dancing, dancing a pas de deux. Which is weird because Elektra is rude to Bucky, so why would he dance with her.”

“That is weird,” Matt echoed.

“And then Bucky came in and told me that he didn’t even want to dance with her and she forced him. But how would that even work? You literally can’t force someone to dance with you. He could’ve said no,” Natasha vented.

“But didn’t you just say she’s mean to him?” Matt asked. “Maybe he danced with her because he knew she would be even more mean to him if he refused.”

Nat shrugged. “Yeah, I guess that’s possible.”

It was hard for Natasha to envision this blackmail-esque situation Matt was describing, but it was, in all honesty, more probable than him wanting to do it. Natasha and Bucky had danced pas de deuxs together for quite some time and it was amazing. They had a great connection. She couldn’t imagine that he’d want to dance with anyone else after having danced with her before. 

“Bucky would never betray you like that. Trust me,” Matt assured.

“Maybe we should have Bucky and Steve over for dinner sometime. Our little trip together was such a fun time,” Natasha stated.

“I would love that. I could cook,” Matt said.

Matt was an amazing cook, but he hardly ever did it. Most nights he got home relatively late, so he wanted takeout or food Natasha made. And Natasha was not a very good cook. Her mom had taught her all the classic Russian recipes, but Matt didn’t necessarily like them. That was fine, but it meant that Natasha had a limited portfolio of things to cook for them. Any excuse to eat Matt’s food was good in Natasha’s book.

“So, if you’re all okay with Bucky now, invite them to dinner on Saturday,” Matt suggested.

“I will later this week,” Natasha responded.

The rest of the week flew by with shortened company classes. Most days Natasha had at least six free hours to just vibe. Although she did mainly spend them working out. She had considered going into the company to help with the little kid auditions, but the mere idea of it overwhelmed her. When she was younger, she looked forward to Nutcracker season all year long. Now, she dreaded it.

On Friday, all the auditions were finally over. They’d be able to start rehearsals on the next Wednesday. The mood at the company was just a lot happier and lighter. Hell, even Elektra was a little more bearable on Friday. It was also the day Natasha was going to invite Bucky and Steve over for dinner. She knew it was short notice, but that was what she thrived on.

“Good morning, Natasha,” Maria Hill greeted as Natasha walked out of her first, and only, class of the day. A class that was not being taught by Maria.

“Oh, good morning. I didn’t expect to see you here today,” Natasha stated, a little startled by her presence. 

“Cast list,” Maria responded, holding up a piece of paper.

Holy. Fucking. Shit. It was the cast list. She could finally figure out her role. She hadn’t felt too confident in her audition, but she also knew that Tony would always stick up for her. She was expecting to see her name right next to Snow Queen.

Natasha followed Maria over to the spot on the wall where the cast lists were always put out. Everyone else was still warming down and talking in the studio, so she would be the first one to see. Natasha was excited to get the inside scoop.

As soon as Maria stuck the paper on the wall, Natasha skimmed over it, looking for her name. No, looking for Snow Queen. And she found it.  _ Snow Queen - Elektra Natchios Snow King - Bucky Barnes Sugar Plum Fairy - Natasha Romanov _

It didn’t come out often, but Natasha had a Karen side. The side that would complain to the manager when something was off. Today something was off. It was time to break out the Karen side and speak to the manager. In this case, the “manager” was Tony. Right after seeing the cast list, she marched down to Tony’s office. There had to have been a typo.

Tony smiled at Natasha the second she walked in. “Hi. Congrats.”

“On what?” Natasha hissed.

“Woah, what’s wrong?” Tony asked with genuine concern.

“There was a typo on the cast list,” Natasha stated.

“Wait, there was?” Tony questioned. “I could’ve sworn that I checked over that thing, like, seven times.”

“You had me as the Sugar Plum and Elektra as the Snow Queen,” Natasha answered.

Tony furrowed his brow. “I’m confused. That’s how we casted it. Is that an issue? I mean, pretty much everyone wants Sugar Plum. You did great in the audition, we thought you could handle the part.”

“Well of course I can handle the part,” Natasha explained. “I’ve danced it the past, like, five years in a row.”

“Everyone wants that part. You don’t want that part?” Tony asked. 

“No. That’s why I didn’t put it on my sheet,” Natasha said. 

“I could very easily give it to someone else,” Tony threatened.

“You won’t and you know it,” Natasha responded.

Tony sighed. “Nat, you have to accept your role. You got the role that everyone wants. You can’t be out here complaining about your part when it’s, like, the most iconic role in the show. You can’t become, like, our company diva. Your part is your part because it’s the best one for you.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit,” Natasha fought back. “Pas de deux is my thing. You can’t tell me that Elektra is going to do a better job at the snow pas de deux than I would.”

“Elektra alone, no. But Elektra and Bucky together, yes,” Tony commented.

So Tony had seen Elektra and Bucky dancing together, too. And he hadn’t just seen it, it had convinced him to give Elektra Natasha’s role. It was partially Bucky’s fault. He should have told her no. It would’ve prevented this whole mess of a cast list. Mayne he and Steve wouldn’t be invited over for Saturday dinner. 

“I can’t believe this, Tony,” Natasha complained.

“I’m sorry, but they’re just perfect together. It’s rare to find a pairing so perfect. I had to take advantage of that,” Tony justified.

Natasha scoffed. “Come on. There’s a Sugar Plum pas de deux, too.”

“Yes, there is. Which you said is your strong suit. So you should be happy to be dancing that. Be careful, I don’t want to have to make you a party guest,” Tony warned.

Natasha rolled her eyes and walked out. Tony could never make her a party guest. He wouldn’t waste her talent like that. Besides, if they weren’t such good friends, Natasha would never go and complain to him like that. This was just a special circumstance. He’d given her top role to her top enemy. Natasha had always tried not to fight back when it came to Elektra, but that was about to change.

“Hey, Nat,” Bucky greeted, sitting at Natasha’s vanity when she walked into her dressing room.

“Hey. Congrats on the role, by the way. That’s a great one,” Natasha said.

“I’m really really excited for it. I do wish I could be dancing it with you, though,” Bucky said.

Natasha pulled out her extra folding chair and sat down next to Bucky. “So do I. I really didn’t want to get Sugar Plum, but that’s where we are. I know I can do it, at least. I’ve still got it memorized. I just thought Snow Queen would be really fun to spice it up, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky responded.

“Tony said he saw you and Elektra dancing together, that’s why he casted it the way he did,” Natasha informed.

“I don’t know what to say to that, Nat,” Bucky said. “I already told you what happened. She wanted me to dance with her, I did it. Tony saw it, he casted us to dance together. I didn’t choose this. I wish you could be the Snow Queen. I wish Tony didn’t have such a say in the casting process.”

“It is a little fucked. I mean, he has no experience in dance. But I guess with chemistry casting, you don’t need someone classically trained. You guys just have a better connection than you and I do, there’s nothing I can do about it,” Natasha said.

“I don’t know that that’s true, Nat,” Bucky said.

“It’s true to Tony, and that’s what matters,” Natasha said.

“Trust me, I wish it weren’t,” Bucky stated.

“Are you busy tomorrow night?” Natasha asked, gently leaning against Bucky.

“No, Steve and I never have any plans,” Bucky answered.

“Come over for dinner tomorrow night,” Natasha requested.

“There’s nothing I would like more,” Bucky said.

“So, Matt, did you already buy your Nutcracker ticket?” Steve asked, making himself a plate of lemon chicken and rice on Saturday night.

“Yes I did. I’m actually an annual ticket holder, so I have the same seat at every premier,” Matt answered.

“Sometimes I forget that’s how you guys met,” Bucky said.

“Well, he doesn’t just rely on his ticket holder status, though. He buys a ticket for every single performance. Which he already did for this show,” Natasha said.

“I don’t think I could watch the Nutcracker that many times,” Bucky said.

Steve and Bucky came over at seven on Saturday for dinner. They had no company rehearsal that day, so it was a very casual vibe. There was nothing for anyone to stress over. Well, there was nothing for anyone other than Matt to stress over. Matt was juggling an intense workload with more cases than normal, so he was actually even more stressed. 

“This looks just absolutely amazing,” Steve complimented, digging into his food.

Matt had made a lemon chicken and rice skillet with a side of green beans. It was amazing.

“It doesn’t just look it, it tastes it,” Bucky added.

“Thank you,” Matt said. “It’s a really fast meal. I’ve been too busy to cook recently, so having you guys over was a great excuse to make a meal.”

“I’m very glad for it. I don’t know how many days a week I can handle takeout,” Natasha said.

“Well Bucky can eat it three meals a day, seven days a week. And it’s not that he just can, he actually does,” Steve said.

All night was spent making jabs at each other and sharing stories. For a while, Natasha forgot completely about her casting fiasco. She was no longer mad at Bucky at all for the stuff with Elektra. Steve and Bucky were too dear of friends of hers to stay mad at. It was nice to spend time with people from the company but not talking about the company.

That peace didn’t last long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you so much for continuing to read! I'm really really loving this story, even more so than the previous one in the series. Stay tuned for tomorrow when Natasha confronts Elektra.


	4. Chapter 4 - Elektra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For once, Elektra wasn't trying to offend Natasha. Yet, somehow, she did.

Natasha Romanov was a classically trained, amazing dancer. Elektra could say a lot of bad things about Nat, but she couldn’t say that she wasn’t talented. So, of course, Natasha got the Sugar Plum Fairy. It wasn’t really the role Elektra had wanted: she’d only wanted it so Nat couldn’t have it. That being said, Elektra still got a great role. She was the Snow Queen. And the Snow King was none other than Bucky. Elektra wondered if she could’ve beaten Natasha out for Sugar Plum had Tony not caught her and Bucky practicing pas de deux. It was a hard call, Natasha was truly amazing.

When Elektra walked into the studio for rehearsals on Wednesday, Natasha was already there. That was unusual, Elektra was usually the first one there. She was in a studio working on the Sugar Plum dance. Which was odd because she’d danced it multiple times before. Elektra didn’t want to disrupt her, so she walked by and into her dressing room.

Elektra’s dressing room was relatively boring. Actually, it was completely boring. There wasn’t anything in there that she had added other than a mini fridge for water and a container full of snacks. She also bought a nice chair with a cushion for her vanity because the other chair made her butt sore. It was a privilege to have your own dressing room in the company and Elektra really didn’t take advantage of it. Someone who did was Bucky. Now that they were dance partners, maybe Elektra could get him to help her spice up her dressing room.

As Elektra was changing into her dance clothes and beginning her stretching routine, she could sense that someone had entered the room. She turned her head to find that none other than Natasha was standing in the doorway.

“Hello,” Elektra greeted, continuing to stretch.

“Hi,” Natasha responded.

“Congrats on Sugar Plum,” Elektra said.

Natasha rolled her eyes and scoffed, “Oh please. Don’t even bother with all that. I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?” Elektra asked, genuinely confused.

“It started with dancing with Bucky,” Natasha began. “You did that because you knew that I wanted Snow Queen. So you decided to dance with Bucky, already knowing that you two have good chemistry from your Swan Lake rehearsals. And you knew that Tony would see you. So, he would cast you over me for Snow Queen.”

“Nat, I didn’t know you wanted Snow Queen. I danced with Bucky because I was bored. There was no part I was trying to get,” Elektra explained.

As much as Elektra genuinely disliked Natasha, she felt bad about this. She was clearly upset that she didn’t get the role she had wanted. It was true that Elektra dancing with Bucky had gotten her the role, but that wasn’t her intention. Elektra had just wanted Nat to be upset that she and Bucky were dancing together. It wasn’t that deep. And Elektra really didn’t care what role she was cast in. In fact, she probably would have preferred to do Sugar Plum just because of how iconic it was. This really wasn’t her intention. For once, Elektra felt bad.

“Listen, if there’s anything I can do to make this up to you, just let me know,” Elektra sympathized. “I honestly would’ve rather gotten Sugar Plum Fairy than Snow Queen. This wasn’t some intentional plot against you.”

“There’s nothing you can do now. It’s too late for that,” Natasha replied.

“Then I don’t know what you want from me,” Elektra said.

“I’ll let you know when I find out,” Natasha said, walking out of her dressing room.

Elektra sighed, still stretching out her straddle. Natasha was going to start being all weird and vengeful, she could tell. She’d always been relatively diplomatic. This was a bad situation because Elektra wasn’t even trying to be a bitch. Yet Natasha couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that not everything Elektra did was about her. She was beginning to be genuinely happy, with a new pas de deux partner and a stable boyfriend. Elektra was not prepared to have to deal with Natasha’s shit.

“Has she been crazy to you, too?” Elektra asked, walking into the rehearsal studio for the snow pas de deux.

“Who, Nat?” Bucky questioned.

“Yeah, who else,” Elektra said, setting her water bottle down in the corner of the room by the piano. 

Bucky sighed. “I dunno, not really. I mean, at first she was a little upset. But then I tried to explain to her what was actually happening and now she’s chilled out.”

“With you, not me,” Elektra remarked.

“Well we’re in much different situations with her,” Bucky explained. “I’m her best friend and you guys have never gotten along.”

“But I don’t understand why she thinks I have this whole conspiracy against her,” Elektra stated.

“Really?” Bucky asked, surprised. “Elektra, you’ve been nothing but rude to her the entire time you’ve known each other. With all the stuff you’ve done and said to her, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to think you did all this on purpose.”

Elektra could feel her face heating up as she blushed. She had been… well, not particularly nice to Natasha in the past. But there was a lot behind that, and it wasn’t all Elektra’s fault. They were both new company members trying to be promoted when they first met. Elektra had wanted to make friends, but Natasha was far too competitive for that. Elektra never even bothered being rude to her until the things went down with Matt. It was at a cast party after a performance, where multiple company supporters were also in attendance. Matt and Elektra were having a great conversation until Natasha saw it, got jealous, and decided to push Elektra out of the conversation. That’s when Elektra decided that there was no way they could be friends, or even neutral. It was Natasha’s own fault that Elektra acted the way she did.

Elektra plugged her phone into the stereo and pulled up the Nutcracker soundtrack,

“I’m sad we barely got any time with one of our teachers to learn this,” Bucky said.

“Me too, but I know we can do it,” Elektra responded.

She pressed play on the music and they began to dance. Everything felt absolutely perfect. Elektra had complete trust in Bucky. She allowed him to lift her and direct her. That was an issue she had had with prior partners. She hadn’t trusted them, and that lack of trust had ultimately led to her getting dropped more frequently. With Bucky, everything just felt right. Elektra could let herself be completely immersed in the dancing. 

“That was great!” Bucky exclaimed the moment the music stopped.

Elektra squealed, “I’m soooo excited for us to perform this.”

Bucky picked her up and spun her around, both of them laughing. It really was the perfect pairing.

“Listen, do you wanna hang out sometime?” Bucky inquired. “We could go get smoothies or order Chinese food or something fun.”

Elektra smiled at him. “That sounds absolutely wonderful.”

“We could actually go now. The rest of my afternoon is free,” Bucky suggested.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Elektra confirmed.

Bucky had suggested Chinese food or smoothies, so they decided to do both. They just got drive-thru Smoothie King and brought that to Elektra’s apartment and they’d ordered the Chinese as they left the company, hoping that it would get there about the same time they did.

“Wait, you live in the same apartment as Matt and Nat?” Bucky asked as they pulled up to the apartment complex. 

“I do. But no one knows, so please don’t mention it,” Elektra said.

They took the stairs up to her apartment, a comfortable silence between them. 

When Elektra opened the door to her apartment, she felt Bucky’s entire mood brighten, and it wasn’t bad before. She knew he lived in a shitty apartment, so this was certainly an upgrade. It took a considerable chunk of her paycheck for Elektra to be able to afford the apartment. She did some modeling for dance catalogues on the side, which really helped pay it off. That was another secret of hers. She found it embarrassing for some reason. It was likely someone she knew would eventually see it, so she just hoped that they wouldn’t mention it. 

“This is such a gorgeous place,” Bucky complimented.

“Thank you, I love it,” Elektra said.

Elektra brought her dance bag into her bathroom and set it on the counter, where she always kept it. She was glad she always kept her apartment clean seeing as she wasn’t expecting to have company tonight. But it made her stressed out when things were messy, so she was usually very clean.

Bucky sat down on one of her barstools and sipped on his smoothie, still looking around the loft. It wasn’t huge, but it sure was pretty.

“You know, I really want to get an apartment in this complex,” Bucky wished.

“I say just go for it and get one,” Elektra recommended.

“Saldy, I can’t,” Bucky sighed. “I want to move in with Steve, but he has a house with his best friend, Sam. So Steve and I can’t just abandon Sam. But we also don’t want to live in a place with the three of us. So we’re kind of waiting until Sam gets into a serious relationship and wants his girlfriend to move into the house.”

“I think you should just buy it yourself now. Then you can get a better, nice place,” Elektra said, sitting down next to him.

“I don’t know that I can afford it. I don’t get principal money, I get soloist money,” Bucky stated.

“Well, that might change soon,” Elektra said. 

“Do you really think so?” Bucky asked.

“I mean, you’ve gotten really good roles for the past two shows, it feels like it’s only a matter of time,” Elektra answered.

“Yeah, but Tony doesn’t like me very much,” Bucky stated.

“He doesn’t really like me either, so I probably couldn’t comment on whether or not that’s true,” Elektra said.

Tony was a weird guy. He had no ballet experience and he definitely played favorites. His absolute favorite was Natasha, for some reason. They were even friends outside of the company. Elektra always assumed that that was why Tony didn’t like her very much. Elektra was Natasha’s number one competition and he never wanted to cast anyone over her. 

“You know, maybe I will invest in an apartment here,” Bucky said. “Both you and Natasha live here, so that’s pretty epic. Oh, and Matt, too, of course. I love Matt, he’s such a great guy.”

“You know, Natasha wouldn’t even hate me if it weren’t for Matt,” Elektra reflected.

“Wait, really?” Bucky asked.

“She never told you the story?” Elektra inquired.

“Not that I can remember,” Bucky said.

It was no surprise that Natasha wouldn’t tell Bucky the real reason they didn’t get along. In fact, it was possible that Nat didn’t even recognize that’s what had started it: she’d been rude to Elektra all along. That’s the thing that really didn’t make sense: Natasha was the one who started this whole thing, but she always acted like she was the victim. Although, Matt probably knew that was the reason why, seeing as he was there. Elektra often wondered what her life would be like if Natasha had never interrupted that conversation. Would she be dating Matt? Would she be friends with Natasha? She’d never know.

“So, Natasha was always cold to me from the beginning. She didn’t want to be friends with her competition,” Elektra began. “One day after a show, we were having our party and I was talking to Matt. Natasha got jealous, came over, and pushed me out of the conversation. Since then, I decided I was going to stop being nice to her.”

“That’s not at all how Natasha told me your, like, feud thing started,” Bucky remarked.

“How did she tell it?” Elektra asked, eager to hear.

“She basically said that you got better roles than her from the beginning and were jealous so you were just always a bitch to her,” Bucky explained. 

Elektra scoffed. “I can’t believe it. Well, actually I can. She always has to be the victim. I wanted to be friends with her. I tried so hard to be friends with her.”

“I think she genuinely doesn’t remember it like that. Like, I think to her, something completely different happened,” Bucky said.

Elektra sighed and looked up at her ceiling. How glad she was to no longer have popcorn ceilings. “Maybe I’ll try to find out,” she said.

Before the conversation could go any further, there was a knock at the door. Their Chinese takeout. Elektra had paid on her phone so they would just leave it outside the door and she wouldn’t have to interact with them. How glad she was for technology. Elektra opened the door and grabbed the bag, happy to finally have food. Considering she was a paid athlete, she ate out way too often.

“I hope you’re hungry, I ordered a lot,” Elektra stated, setting the bag down on her bar counter. 

Bucky walked over and sat down on one of the sleek, black stools. Everything in her kitchen was black, for the most part. The cabinets, of course, were white. As was the tile. Pretty much everything else was black.

“I’m always hungry for Chinese takeout,” Bucky said.

It was a very pleasant evening for Elektra and, she assumed, Bucky. She felt as though she was finally beginning to make friends in the company. Though, maybe Bucky wasn’t the best friend to make, considering her relationship with Natasha. Oh well, a friend was more important than an enemy. Besides, she would try to talk through and work everything out with Natasha in due time. 

When Elektra woke up the next morning, it smelled like cinnamon. It was odd, she didn’t have an air freshener or anything. Honestly, it kinda freaked her out. She stepped out of bed, put on a robe and slippers, and emerged into the kitchen. Bobby was standing in the kitchen. And he was holding a pan of cinnamon rolls.

Bobby smiled at her as she approached. “Hi, baby. I figured I’d show you what it would be like for you every morning if we moved in together,” Bobby said.

Elektra blushed. She did not enjoy this uninvited invasion of her space. It seemed like moving in with him would be a bad idea, but he was so invested in it. She just liked having her own space and alone time. This was pretty much the only place she got that, and she wasn’t willing to give it up so easily.

“They look delicious,” Elektra said, faking a smile and kissing Bobby’s cheek.

“Here, I’ll fix you a plate and everything,” Bobby said.

Elektra sat down on one of her bar stools and watched Bobby get her breakfast ready. He’d made her a fresh smoothie, which was a nice gesture. He poured it out of the blender and into a cute glass and put a cinnamon roll on a nice plate with a fork. Elektra had white plates and silver, matte, silverware. She absolutely adored it. That was the other thing about moving in together, Bobby would most likely want to bring all his stuff over, which would ruin her aesthetic. 

“Here you go,” Bobby said, setting Elektra’s breakfast out in front of her. She couldn’t lie, it did look really good. 

“Thank you, darling,” Elektra said, leaning over the counter and kissing his cheek.

He sat down next to her with his own cinnamon roll and smoothie. It was sweet of him to do this. But was it actually sweet, or was he just using it to get his way with her? Either way, she got a good breakfast out of it. That would be a benefit of him moving in, he would cook a lot of meals for her. And he was a good cook. Maybe she would have to let him move in after all. 

“So, what’s on the agenda for you this afternoon?” Bobby asked, eating his second cinnamon roll of the morning.

“I’m going to try to befriend Nat,” Elektra said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you so much for continuing to follow my story! We're getting so close to Christmas, I'm very excited. I'm using this fic as somewhat of an advent calendar. Stay tuned for tomorrow to see Natasha talk with Steve about Elektra.


	5. Chapter 5 - Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha wasn't sure how to fix her dilemma, but she knew she would. She always got what she wanted.

Elektra Natchios was a pompous bitch. Based on their interaction, Natasha could tell that Elektra thought she deserved Snow Queen more than she did. Which she did not. The fact that she was pretending to be so nice to her really threw her off. In the entire time she’d known Elektra, she was never kind to Natasha. The fact that she even said she would’ve rather gotten Natasha’s role over her own was just ridiculous. And her getting Bucky involved showed how desperate she was to hurt her. Why else would Elektra start dancing with her best friend?

Matt walked into the bedroom as Natasha was changing into her work clothes in the morning. That day it was a dark green, boatneck Yumiko leotard with white Capezio tights. Natasha was the queen of mixing brands. She was going to put some Nike sweatpants and a sweatshirt on over it. Maybe it wasn’t fashionable, but it was comfortable.

“What do you think of the look?” Natasha asked, stepping into her sweatpants.

“Looks amazing as always,” Matt responded.

In ways, Matt being blind was a blessing. Natasha never had to worry about looking good to him, though she actually still did. She’d always know he fell in love with her for her, not her looks. It also made it very easy for her to get affirmations. Natasha would always ask him how she looked or if she looked good or if she looked fat or anything like that. Of course, he always responded with the correct answer. Though she knew it wasn’t necessarily true, it still made her feel better.

“I’m going to work from home again today,” Matt said, changing out of his work clothes and into sweats. He was working from home more and more recently.

“Oh?” Natasha questioned, turning towards him. “Why? Is something wrong?”  
Matt sighed. “No, everything is okay. I just can’t focus there very well. There's too much going on. Too many people, too much noise.”

Matt was easily stimulated, so Natasha didn’t push it any further. She trusted him. Besides, he was close with his coworkers, so it was pretty unlikely that there was any sort of work drama with him. She was jealous of that. Natasha would do almost anything to not have to deal with Elektra anymore. Almost.

There was a company class right away in the morning, before real rehearsals would start. It was a petit allegro class, which Natasha wasn’t necessarily looking forward to. Since it was jump-heavy, it always got her very tired out. Being tired was not helpful for rehearsals. 

Natasha showed up at the company extremely prepared, for once. She had her clothes on, her hair perfected, her make-up done, fully stretched and warmed up, and a full stomach. Usually she only had about one of those things done when she arrived at the company. 

Walking into the rehearsal studio for the petit allegro class, it appeared that Maria was going to be the instructor. Natasha absolutely loved Maria, so she was excited about it. She felt like Maria gave the best instruction out of any of her instructors when it came to technique.

“Good morning,” Maria greeted as Natasha walked in, the first company member to arrive.

“Good morning,” Natasha responded, standing by the barre for a little extra warming up.

“Are you ready to do some petit allegro?” Maria asked.

“Never,” Natasha replied. “It’s really not my thing. I much prefer adagios. And pas de deus, of course. Though it seems I’m no longer a part of the go-to pas de deux pairing.”

“Oh, Natasha,” Maria sympathized. “Tony told me you weren’t happy with Sugar Plum Fairy. But trust me, it’s much better for you than Snow Queen. I think that because you’ve already danced this role multiple times, you can really push it and make it the best Sugar Plum anyone has ever seen.”

“I’ll do my best,” Natasha promised.

As Natasha was doing some tendus, Bucky walked into the studio. He was wearing dark red biker shorts and a black t-shirt, which was new for him. It looked amazing. It was much more fitting than the classic black pants and white t-shirt look that most of the male dancers wore on a daily basis. Bucky walked over to Natasha at the barre and sat down, beginning to do some hamstring stretches.

“Hi,” Natasha said, looking straight forward and not at Bucky.

“I’m super excited to work on some jumps today,” Bucky enthused.

“I’m not excited to work on jumps before we have to do some rehearsals. I know it’s gonna tire me out,” Natasha said.

“If this class tires you out, Natasha, then your stamina is much too low,” Maria commented from the front of the room, evidently eavesdropping. 

Natasha blushed. She wasn’t a bad dancer, she didn’t have bad stamina. Well, she didn’t think she did. But maybe Maria was right: maybe if she couldn’t get through a petit allegro, her stamina was bad. That was something she could work on, something she would work on. Since she was just doing the same old dance, she’d have plenty of time to work on the treadmill. 

It wasn’t long before the studio was full of company members. Natasha noticed Bucky and Elektra constantly looking over at each other, but she chose to ignore it. It reminded her of middle school crushes. It hurt her to think that they were spending so much time together now, rehearsing.

The class was absolutely and utterly exhausting. It was filled with entrechats, brises, and royales. And it wasn’t even just filled with that, it was packed full of those plus plenty of other tiring steps. The constant looks between Bucky and Elektra didn’t help, either. Overall, it was not a great rehearsal. As she was grabbing her water bottle and getting ready to go to her rehearsal, Elektra walked over to her. Great. Just the person she wanted to speak to. Never.

“Hey, nice class today,” Elektra said in a friendly tone.

“Thanks,” Natasha replied, bluntly.

Natasha could see that Elektra was preparing to say something more, but she didn’t want to talk to her. She took her water bottle and went into her dressing room as Elektra began her next sentence. Natasha wasn’t trying to be a bitch, she just didn’t want to become friends with the girl who had made her life a little more hellish. And could anyone blame her for that? She wasn’t going to easily forgive Elektra for all the shit she had done.

Today Natasha would be spending her rehearsal period working privately with Maria on the Sugar Plum variation. Then she’d be spending a little time working on the Sugar Plum pas de deux with her partner, Alexei. Alexei was a principal dancer at the company, and he was actually Bucky’s understudy for Swan Lake who she ended up dancing with. He was a good partner: he was actually her usual pas de deux partner. Overall, it was a very average day.

The next week and a half was extremely mundane. In fact, it was almost painfully normal. The one thing that wasn’t very normal about it was Bucky. Ever since he got partnered with Elektra, she was seeing him less and less. They spent an extremely long period of time practicing daily. They were really trying to perfect that dance. It was annoying to Natasha. That should’ve been her dance. And now she rarely got to see her best friend. Bucky and Natasha only got to talk for about fifteen minutes a day in person now, as opposed to the usual hour. It made life a little more lonely.

Natasha figured that Bucky wasn’t only absent from her life right now, but from everyone’s. For that reason, Natasha decided to take an afternoon away from rehearsing her Sugar Plum variation and go see Steve. Steve was one of Natasha’s close friends even before Steve and Bucky started dating. He was just such a sweet and attractive guy, it was almost impossible to not be, or want to be, friends with him. 

Steve lived in a cute little house in the suburbs with his best friend, Sam. Sam was also a really cool and sweet guy, but he was always working because he was a social worker. It was a much needed, yet absolutely exhausting, career. The house was always clean and looked super sleek. Natasha would love to live in a house just like it. In fact, once she and Matt had a family, it was likely they’d get a cute little house in the suburbs. But she didn’t want to think about that yet, that was much too soon.

Natasha stood on Steve’s porch and knocked on the door. Yes, his house was cute enough for a porch. There was even a little welcome mat with mistletoe on it. Super adorable.

Steve opened the door promptly and smiled at Natasha. 

“Hey, Nat, come on it,” He said, stepping aside to let her in.

Natasha walked inside his house and carefully took her shoes off at that mat. All the flooring was tile, so she didn’t want her shoes to get it all dirty. It was way too much of a hassle to clean.

“You don’t have Nutcracker rehearsal?” Steve asked, taking Natasha’s coat and putting it in the closet for her. God, he really was the sweetest.

“I decided to take this afternoon off. I need some time to… I dunno, not work on the Sugar Plum variation.”

Steve nodded. “Makes sense. We don’t start our real rehearsals until next week when we’ll be accompanying the dancers. I’m kinda looking forward to it and kinda dreading it. It’s always fun at first, but we do it every year, so the music gets old fast.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel about dancing Sugar Plum. I think I’ve done it the past four years in a row,” Natasha said. 

“I don’t know how you deal with that,” Steve said. “Like, for us, there’s no way we can ever play different music. But they could give you a different role. Though I suppose there’s not that many roles you can give to your principal dancers. I mean, the main character is a little girl.”

“I think she’s twelve this year,” Natasha stated.

“I’m always amazed at how good the little kids can be,” Steve said.

Steve grabbed two waters from the fridge and a carton of raspberries. Obviously he knew Natasha was always trying to be healthy. Sometimes it sucked, but it was kind of all she knew. She was a dancer since she could walk, it was always about what she could do to get better. One of those things was maintaining the ideal body. Or, as ideal as possible. And it did help. Natasha attended the Vaganova ballet school, which had strict weight requirements.

Natasha sat down on Steve’s couch, pulling her knees to her chest. It was her preferred way to sit. Steve handed her a water, which she promptly opened. Water was probably her favorite drink.

“I’m thinking of making chocolate dipped strawberries this weekend,” Steve said, leaning against the arm of the couch so as to face her.

“Please please please give me some of them when you do,” Natasha begged.

“Maybe you guys could come over Saturday night,” Steve suggested. “I mean, we were at your place recently: we gotta return the favor.”

Natasha smiled and nodded. “I would absolutely love that, and I’m sure Matt would, too.”

Matt and Natasha loved to spend their weekend with their friends. Most often it was Steve and Bucky, since Bucky was Natasha’s best friend. But they also spent quite a bit of time with Matt’s friends from the office. Matt’s friends were busy more often than Natasha’s were, though. With Steve and Bucky, they usually just had dinner and talked. Sometimes they would play card games, that was a Bucky thing. 

“Come over after you eat dinner,” Steve instructed. “I’m gonna just make and buy a bunch of snacks for us. I much prefer making snacks to making meals.”

“We’ll be there. Probably around eight thirty,” Natasha said.

Steve and Natasha sat in a comfortable silence for a while, just eating the berries. Natasha looked around the room and noticed something new. On the tv stand, there was a new photograph. It was a picture of Steve and Bucky standing together after a Swan Lake performance. It was absolutely adorable and really sweet. Natasha had advocated for Steve and Bucky to date for a long time, she was happy to see them in such a loving relationship now.

“So, does Bucky talk a lot about Elektra now?” Natasha asked, nervous to hear the answer.

Steve shrugged. “I guess. I mean, more than he used to.”

Natasha definitely saw this coming. Bucky was such a nice guy, it was easy for anyone to become friends with him. And Elektra was good at switching up her personality. She went from being a complete bitch to randomly wanting to be friends with her. It hurt, but there was nothing Natasha could do about it. It wasn’t her place to tell Bucky who to be friends with. 

“It sucks,” Natasha stated.

“I’ll try to talk to him about it,” Steve offered. “I can talk about how I think it would hurt you if he were friends with Elektra and all that stuff.”

“That would be amazing,” Natasha said.

The day after talking to Steve, Bucky came into Natasha’s dressing room before rehearsal. It was obvious that Steve had talked to him and convinced him to spend more time with her. Instead of being upset that Bucky had to be convinced, Natasha was just grateful that he was spending more time with her. Their conversation was nothing abnormal: they talked about the usual company drama. What was unusual was that as soon as Bucky walked out, Elektra walked in.

“Oh my gosh, could you just leave me alone?” Natasha begged. She was tired of constantly interacting with Elektra.

“I just wanted to talk to you,” Elektra said, her face flushing.

“I’m sorry, Elektra, but I don’t want to talk to you,” Natasha said. “You’ve been 

rude to me since the beginning. I don’t want to just forgive and forget. I have lots of friends, I don’t need another.”

“I just want to make things better. I don’t want us to hate each other anymore. You don’t have to become friends with me, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d forgive me,” Elektra said.

“You’ve never even apologized,” Natasha stated.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so rude to you over the years,” Elektra apologized.

Natasha rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Yeah, there’s no way I’m accepting that poor excuse of an apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you so much for your continued support! The only downside to posting a chapter a day is that we're already nearing the end. I'm already starting to think about my next story in this series, but I'm unsure of when that will go up. I hope you all will continue on to read it. Stay tuned for the next chapter where Elektra accidentally crosses the line.


	6. Chapter 6 - Elektra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elektra had a major dilemma - should she be nice to Natasha or rude?

Natasha Romanov was not easy to befriend. Elektra was tired of coming to work and knowing that she had a “rival”. It was never what she wanted. She assumed that becoming friends with Bucky would make it easier for her to become friends with Nat, but she was wrong. In fact, befriending Bucky seemingly made it harder. But Elektra wasn’t someone to easily give up on a challenge. 

Because they’d been working on their dances for a while, they were starting to do bigger rehearsals on the stage, with the orchestra. Elektra loved being able to dance in their auditorium. It was an exhilarating experience for her. It was also super awesome to be able to see everyone and their dances, especially since there were little kids in this show. Elektra felt like somewhat of a mentor to the kids.

Bigger rehearsals also meant that Elektra would get to see Natasha without having to seek her out. She had a feeling Natasha would be more open to it if it happened in a natural environment. Elektra and Bucky decided that they would spend all day watching rehearsals in the auditorium, not rehearsing their dance. They’d already spent enough time on it. In fact, they’d had multiple teachers come in and tell them it was the best snow pas de deux they’d ever seen. Even Tony came in and said that, although he didn’t like Elektra or Bucky much. It felt like it was meant to be.

Natasha’s rendition of the Sugar Plum Fairy was the best Elektra had ever seen. Something about her movements were so fluid and her connection to the audience was absolutely insane. Elektra could not take her eyes off of Natasha the entire time she was on stage. She still thought she was better than her, but she could admit that Nat was amazing.

“That was… just… wow,” Elektra sputtered, going backstage to meet Nat as she finished her performance.

“Thanks, I guess,” Natasha said, pushing past her to get to her dressing room.

It wasn’t much, but it was progress. It seemed like Nat might be opening up to the possibility of at least being friendly towards Elektra. Honestly, Elektra wasn’t really sure what she was looking for in their relationship yet. What she really wanted was a close, female friend who had the same job as her. That could potentially be Natasha, but she wasn’t sure that was what Nat was looking for. In fact, it seemed like Natasha didn’t want any relationship at all. 

Elektra sighed and walked back over to Bucky. He was still sitting and watching the rehearsal. She sat next to him, slightly leaning against him. 

“How did it go?” Bucky asked.

Elektra shrugged. “I dunno. She could’ve been worse. She wasn’t necessarily rude but she also didn’t want to talk to me.”

“That’s a good sign,” Bucky said.

“I just almost feel like why am I trying. Like, what would I get out of the relationship? I feel like things are fine as they are right now: the two of us just don’t really interact at all,” Elektra said.

“Honestly, that’s probably your best bet,” Steve responded.

It probably was a little too late for Elektra to try to become friends with Natasha. Elektra could just stop talking to her at all and everything would be fine. Why did Elektra even want to be friends with Natasha in the first place? Realistically, it was because she was ashamed of the way she’d treated Natasha. When Nat assumed that Elektra had danced with Bucky to ruin her life, she realized how much of her time she had dedicated just to pissing Natasha off. It was honestly embarrassing.

How could Elektra even have a redemption arch? Everyone at the company knew her for being a bitch to Natasha: it was her reputation. It had been her reputation for so many years, it was almost impossible to change that now. Maybe she’d have to stick with the being rude thing. After all, who was it hurting?

Yes, she’d just continue to be rude: that was the final verdict. But she wasn’t going to go out of her way to do it. Elektra would no longer go into Natasha’s rehearsal studios or dressing room to torment her. All of the rude comments would have to take place in a natural setting. 

“I don’t wanna watch the party scene, let’s go rehearse our dance,” Bucky suggested, getting out of his seat.

Elektra stood up and followed him into the hallway before saying, “I don’t feel like rehearsing and we don’t have anything actually scheduled for the rest of today, so let’s just go home.”

“You go home, I’ll hang out with Nat,” Bucky said.

“I’m good with that. See you tomorrow.”

Nutcracker season was, of course, at the same time as Christmas season. Elektra’s family had never been religious, but they were Christmas celebrators. Though, Elektra’s version of Christmas was always the perfect, pristine, magazine-ready, hired decorators type of Christmas. She’d never been able to experience the family-centered Christmas. Lots of people were jealous of her childhood because of how wealthy they were, but she was jealous of that unconditional family love other people got.

Normally, Elektra would decorate her house on December first. This year she’d fallen behind. Because she lived in an apartment complex, she was unable to have a real tree. It was fine, the fake trees looked more perfect. Elektra didn’t really do garland, but she did have fake snow to drape around. It looked really nice along the mantle. She also used blue and white decorations because it felt more sleek.

Elektra texted Bobby when she got home from the company and asked him to get there as soon as possible. She knew he’d rush there, he was so obsessed with her. Within ten minutes, Bobby was in Elektra’s apartment with two peppermint mocha frappuccinos. Somehow he’d gotten the vibe that they were going to be decorating for Christmas.

“Darling, you’re perfect,” Elektra complimented, grabbing her drink from him the moment he stepped through the door.

“It’s all for you,” Bobby said, leaning in and kissing her cheek.

“I thought we could put up the Christmas tree today,” Elektra said. “Though it seems like you knew that, considering you got us Christmas drinks.”

“I was craving them. We must be connected,” Bobby said, smiling at her.

“Well, I already grabbed out the box,” Elektra said, gesturing to the box.

Bobby nodded and walked over to it, taking all the pieces out. He’d put it together last year, but only after she’d tried for hours and he forced her to take a break and let him do it. This year, she didn’t even try. As Bobby assembled the tree, Elektra sat and went through all her Christmas ornaments: inspecting each one to insure perfection.

“You know, fake trees look nice, but I always miss the smell,” Bobby stated, putting together the tree.

“I could burn a winter candle to try to make up for it,” Elektra suggested.

“Yeah, that would be nice,” Bobby said.

Elektra walked into the kitchen and pulled open her candle drawer. She loved to have candles on hand for any occasion. Though, she had to admit, the Christmas ones were her favorite. Winter by Bath and Body Works was the candle Elektra selected, as it just smelled exactly like Christmas. She lit it and set it on the counter. The only thing that would make this better would be Christmas cookies.

“I want Christmas cookies now,” Elektra said, pouting.

“That would make it a real Christmas celebration,” Bobby said. 

“I mean, I could run down to the store real quick if you’d like,” Elektra offered.

“Only if you want to, baby,” Bobby said. “I’m sure you’ve had a long day of rehearsals.”

“Eh, not really. Maybe I’ll just make some,” Elektra said.

“I’ll help you decorate if you do.”

Elektra walked around her kitchen and grabbed all the ingredients needed for sugar cookies. Although her childhood Christmases were not very family-centered, she had made sugar cookies quite a few times, usually with friends. As she was rolling out the dough, Elektra realized something: she didn’t have any cookie cutters. Now, this wasn’t really that big of a deal. She could just run to the store and buy some. But Elektra hated grocery stores, she didn’t want to do that. It was just her luck that she knew someone in the building.

Elektra knocked on the door to Natasha’s apartment quite loudly, just in case whoever was home was in a different room. And it worked. After the first knock, Matt opened the door.

“Hi,” Elektra said, quickly.

“Nat isn’t home,” Matt plainly stated.

“Oh, I’m not here for Natasha,” Elektra said. 

Matt raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Well, I’m currently working on making some Christmas cookies,” Elektra explained. “The cut-out kind, of course. Well, as I was rolling it out, it occured to me that I don’t actually have any cookie cutters. You guys are the only people I know in the building, so I figured I’d come and ask.”

“I didn’t even know you lived here. I also don’t know if we have cookie cutters. I guess I can go check,” Matt said.

“How about you let me look for you,” Elektra offered.

“Yeah, whatever,” Matt said.

The thought of Matt rummaging through his kitchen drawers to find cookie cutters as a blind man was a terrifying thought to Elektra. Even if Elektra and Natasha didn’t get along, she was completely fine with Matt. Matt probably wasn’t completely fine with her. Walking into the apartment, it looked very similar to her own. Of course, it wasn’t a loft, but it had the same vibe. She followed Matt into the kitchen.

“I honestly don’t know which drawer it would be in,” Matt admitted. “I don’t know the last time I made cookies. And I don’t know the last time Nat made cookies that weren’t just gingerbread.”

“Gingerbread cookies are cut out cookies,” Elektra stated.

“Not the way she makes them,” Matt replied.

With the ambiguous idea of Natasha’s gingerbread cookies, Elektra started to search his drawers. It felt like a little bit of an invasion of privacy, especially considering the fact that he couldn’t even see what she was doing. Matt just leaned against the counter and watched her. Well, maybe watched wasn’t the right word for this. He was… there.

“So, you live in this building? Since when?” Matt asked.

“Since forever. Since I got a job at the company,” Elektra answered. 

“But Nat never even knew,” Matt stated.

“I mean, I didn’t exactly think that she’d be happy to know we live in the same building,” Elektra said.

“I can’t say you’re wrong,” Matt said.

Elektra found a few basic cookie cutters in the third drawer she searched. There was an angle, a star, and a heart. Maybe not the most perfect for Christmas, but it was the only option. She could still find a way to decorate them to look Christmas-y.

“Well, I’ve got them,” Elektra announced. “I’ll wash them and bring them back when I’m done.”

“Yeah, whenever works for you,” Matt said, walking back into the living room and sitting down on their couch.

“I, uh, guess I’ll see you soon,” Elektra said, walking out of his apartment and into her own.

Bobby had the tree all set up by the time Elektra returned. She was surprised at his efficiency, especially considering the hassle it had been last year. He’d also already strung up the white lights. For some reason, Elektra felt a little upset about that. Probably because it was normally a two person activity and he’d just taken the liberty to do it himself. She appreciated him trying to be helpful, but it was very important to Elektra to be independent. 

“Hey, baby,” Bobby said. “Did you get your cookie cutters?”

“I did,” Elektra responded. She walked into her kitchen and started to cut out some cookies. “Although I guess the purpose of making the cookies was to kill time until you got the tree put up, so it isn’t even that necessary now.”

Bobby furrowed his eyebrows. “I thought you wanted Christmas cookies.”

“Kinda,” Elektra said.

Elektra wasn’t trying to be rude to Bobby, but it felt like it was. With all this talk of moving in with each other, things were just getting a little weird. Elektra was starting to question whether or not she should continue her relationship with Bobby. She did love him, it was just hard for her to imagine the relationship progressing any further than where it currently was. And Bobby had made it clear that he was expecting both marriage and children.

“I’m sorry. I would’ve set it up slower if I would have known,” Bobby apologized.

Bobby walked over to her and started setting her cut-out cookies onto a baking sheet.

“I’ll help make these,” Bobby offered.

Although Elektra didn’t really want Bobby’s help, she didn’t protest. It wasn’t worth it to fight with him over… well, anything, really. Elektra just wanted to maintain a peaceful, casual relationship. Though it looked like that might not last much longer. Elektra cut out as many cookies as there was dough for and threw them into the oven. Instead of making frosting, she decided to move onto the tree.

“Did you buy new decorations for this year?” Bobby asked.

“No, I’m sticking with the blue and silver again,” Elektra answered, walking into the living room and opening her boxes of decorations. 

Elektra had mainly just bulbs and they were all varying shades of blue and silver. The red and green felt too tacky for her to put up in her home. She wanted everything to look perfect. Because it was impossible to strategically decorate trees, Elektra just began placing the bulbs as she saw fit. Luckily, Bobby recognized that she wanted to be able to do it herself and left her alone. 

“I’m gonna make the frosting for our cookies,” Bobby stated as Elektra decorated.

“Go right ahead,” Elektra said.

Bobby made the frosting and decorated all the cookies. Elektra was fine with it, seeing as she didn’t care too much about them. If she cared about them even an ounce, she’d be upset about it. She couldn’t stand someone not letting her have complete control. That was probably something she needed to go to therapy and deal with, honestly. 

“Here, I washed the cookie cutters so you could bring it back,” Bobby said. “Well, I washed all the dishes.”

“Thanks, baby. I’ll bring them back right now so I don’t forget,” Elektra said, grabbing the cookie cutters from his hand.

Elektra made her way to Matt and Natasha’s apartment with a baggie of five cookies. She figured she’d give them some since they let her use their cutters. 

Elektra knocked on the door more confidently than last time, knowing now that Matt wasn’t going to be rude to her face.

The door opened quickly. Only, the person standing inside it wasn’t Matt: it was Natasha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading! We're getting so close to Christmas now. I'm hoping to post at least one one-shot between now and Christmas, but I've just been so busy with writing this that I just haven't had much time. Stay tuned for tomorrow where Natasha (kinda) yells at Elektra.


	7. Chapter 7 - Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even though Elektra might be terrible, Natasha was beginning to find comfort in other people.

Elektra Natchios was a lying bitch. What made her think she had the right to come over to her house and ask her boyfriend - her blind boyfriend - to let her borrow a kitchen utensil? And to do it when Natasha wasn’t home, on top of that. To make matters worse, she lived in the same apartment complex as Natasha and Matt. And it seemed like she’d lived there for a long time: Natasha was sure she would’ve heard buzz at the company about Elektra moving. This was a massive overstepping of boundaries.

“So, you knew where I lived and decided it would be a good idea to come and ask my blind boyfriend, who you were previously in love with, for a favor?” Natasha asked, talking to Elektra in the entryway of her apartment.

“You’re the only person in the building that I know,” Elektra answered.

“You have a car, you could’ve driven to the store and bought some for yourself. Hell, you could’ve even walked there,” Natasha said.

“I didn’t think it would be a big deal,” Elektra said.

Natasha sighed and leaned against her wall. “See, I do not understand why in the world you would think that. We aren’t friends, that makes it weird for you to show up at my apartment to ask for a favor. And then to bring over food that you made? It’s probably poisoned, we don’t want that.”

“Don’t say that, that’s rude and untrue,” Matt called from the living room.

What world was Natash living in that Matt was taking Elektra’s side over her own. Maybe they had had sex when Elektra came over initially, it would explain why he was defending her and why Elektra didn’t just go to buy her own cookie cutters. Fuck, this was really the last thing Natasha wanted to deal with today. 

“I just was in the middle of making cookies and realized I didn’t have any cookie cutters, that’s it,” Elektra explained. “I figured you guys would have one so I just came here. It’s much easier and faster than going to the store.”

“Yeah, whatever. You know what? Just keep the cookie cutters, we don’t ever use them,” Natasha said.

“Oh, uh, okay,” Elektra said.

“Have a good rest of your day,” Natasha said, walking Elektra to the door and quickly shutting it after her.

“Nat, that was rude,” Matt said.

Natasha walked into the living room and sat next to him on the couch. Matt had been working from home a lot recently with no real explanation. Maybe he and Elektra were having an affair. The cookie cutters were probably just an excuse for in case Natasha was home. It would make sense, they were flirting with each other the night Matt and Natasha met. In fact, Natasha had always been a little suspicious of all of their interactions. It wasn’t that far of a reach. 

“She’s rude to me, I think I can be rude back,” Natasha justified.

Matt sighed. “She wasn’t even being rude to you. She was actually being nice. She was returning something she borrowed, washed. And she brought us some cookies with them.”

“She wouldn’t do that without some underlying motive, Matt. Trust me, I know her better than you do,” Natasha said.

“Nat, I’m not trying to be rude, but not everyone is so obsessed with you that they go out of their way to make your life miserable,” Matt stated.

That stung. Did Matt actually think she was that obsessed with herself? Natasha didn’t think that everything everyone did was a result of her, but she knew a lot of things Elektra did were because of her. Elektra liked to play mind games with Natasha. It wasn’t like she’d never done it before. Just at the last show, Swan Lake, Elektra had used her costumes to put up Instagram videos insisting that she was the lead when she was just the understudy. Natasha knew that she only did that because she wanted to psych Nat out. It was just who she was.

“Not everyone is obsessed with me, you’re right,” Natasha said. “But Elektra is.”

“I honestly don’t think that she is, Nat. Well, maybe she is, but I don’t think she borrowed our cookie cutters just to make you miserable,” Matt said.

“You don’t know her like I do, Matt. Seriously. She doesn’t do anything involving me that doesn’t have some sort of fucked up intention. When it comes to me, everything she does is meant to hurt.”

Natasha was not in a good mood when she came into the company for rehearsal the next day. It was their first day attempting a full run through, which was never easy. Considering the amount of children in the show, it was undoubtedly going to be chaotic. When she walked into her dressing room, Bucky was already sitting at her vanity with two smoothies. He must’ve somehow gotten the vibes that she was in a bad mood and got her something to make it better.

“Good morning,” Bucky greeted, handing Natasha her smoothie.

“Hi,” Natasha said.

“I feel like maybe I should buy a blender and try making my own smoothies. I literally buy a smoothie every morning,” Bucky said.

Natasha sipped on her smoothie and contemplated, “Well, I think it would be almost impossible for you to recreate the Smoothie King recipes You could still make good smoothies, but they wouldn’t be the same.”

“I’ll just test it out before investing in my own blender,” Bucky decided. “I’m pretty sure that Steve and Sam have a blender at their place.”

“When are you guys going to move in together?” Natasha asked, sitting up on her vanity, facing Bucky.

Bucky blushed. “I honestly have no clue. I want to move in with him soon, but the fact that he lives with Sam makes it complicated. We want to get an apartment in your complex. We’ll probably get one within the year.”

“Apparently Elektra lives in my complex,” Natasha informed.

“That’s wild,” Bucky said. “I’m jealous.”

“Well she came over to my place to borrow cookie cutters when I wasn’t even home, just Matt was there,” Natasha ranted. “Which is honestly completely inappropriate. I mean, they’ve only met each other a few times. If I was there, it still would’ve been inappropriate but less so. The fact that she knows which apartment is mine is in and of itself concerning. Why would she know that? Has she, like, followed me there before?”  
“That’s actually a fair point,” Bucky said.

“Matt thinks I’m just being over dramatic and rude to her, but he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know how she acts towards me,” Natasha said.

“Well, it’s been friendly recently,” Bucky reflected.

“For now,” Natasha said. “But whatever, I need to stop wasting so much energy on her. Today Maria is going to do a private rehearsal with Alexei and I before we do our full run through, so I need to be more focused on that.”

“I’m sure it’ll be great. You guys are, like, the best dancers in the company,” Bucky said.

Natasha took off her street clothes and started taping her feet. “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that.”

Alexei was definitely a talented dancer. He’d actually met Natasha when they were teenagers, training at the Vaganova ballet school. Both of them were dreaming of dancing for the Royal Ballet Company one day. Well, that didn’t really work out for either of them. Because of their past, they’d always had a good dance connection. It was the reason they were pas de deux partners.

Natasha rolled out and taped her feet before putting on her pointe shoes. She was pretty much ready for the day. 

“When do you have to leave for your rehearsal?” Bucky asked.

Natasha glanced at her clock and said, “Right now, honestly.”

“Well, I’ll see you at the full run through,” Bucky said.

“Are you ready for this?” Alexei asked as Natasha walked into the rehearsal studio. 

“I’m always ready to dance with you,” Natasha responded, smiling at him.

Alexei was wearing a white long sleeved tee with light purple biker shorts. Natasha had to admit, he was a very attractive guy. They’d had a little bit of a romantic fling in ballet school, but it didn’t last for long. There wasn’t much room for love at the Vaganova school. Even back then, they had been pas de deux partners. They were some of the only American kids in their class. 

“You two better get to it if you want to run through and get critiques before we go for the rill rehearsal,” Maria advised, standing at the front of the room.

Maria started the music and they began to dance. Natasha didn’t like the beginning of the Sugar Plum pas de deux because she thought there were way too many supported turns. When she was dancing with a partner, there were much more interesting things she wanted to do. The ending of the dance, however, had a few nice lifts and shoulder sits. Overall, it wasn’t filled with enough content to be energetic but also not soft enough to be considered beautiful. It was definitely not one of her favorites.

As Natasha hit her ending arabesque, she could feel that they had danced perfectly. Most dance teachers had told her there was no such thing as perfect, you could always improve, but there was no room for improvement there. Alexei and Natasha had danced to their fullest potential.

Maria clapped and walked over to them. “Wow, that was amazing,” she exclaimed. “I knew you two would be able to perform like that, I just didn’t realize it would happen so soon.”

“Well it’s all thanks to him,” Natasha complimented, setting her hand on Alexei’s chest.

Alexei blushed profusely. “I think it was a combined effort.”

“Well I’m very impressed. If I’m being honest, I think you two could handle much harder repertoire. If you two are up for it, I’d love to work independently with you two on some pas de deuxs for fun,” Maria offered.

“Yes,” Alexei and Natasha answered in unison, smiling at each other 

“Perfect. I’m going to have to have a talk with Tony about this pairing, we’ll be choosing our next ballet soon,” Maria said.

So Natasha and Alexei were going to be leads in the next ballet together. That was extremely exciting. Although, it seemed like Tony loved Bucky and Elektra together. They might be a threat for Alexei and Natasha. Natasha could not handle losing a lead to Elektra. It was hard enough for her to lose Snow Queen to her. But how could Alexei and Natasha get a leg up? Maybe they’d have to develop a bond. If they were close friends, their dancing would reflect it. 

“Let’s hang out sometime,” Natasha suggested after Maria walked out of the studio, sipping on her water bottle.

“Should we? When? Where?” Alexei asked.

“It could be today if you want,” Natasha said. “And we can go somewhere or just hang out at my place. We’ll have better chemistry if we get close in our real lives.”

“Very true. Let’s hang out after rehearsal today,” Alexei said.

Natasha smiled at him. “Deal.”

Rehearsal with everyone there was just as terrible and exhausting as Natasha had expected it to be. The little girl playing Clara was only twelve and this was her first time in the role, so it was a little bit overwhelming for her. She had a lot of choreography to remember. There were also a lot of little kids other than Clara. For example, all the little party guests. There was no real issue with them other than the fact that their dance moms would come with them to rehearsal. If there was one thing Natasha had learned during her years of dance, it was to stay away from dance moms.

Because Natasha was dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy, all the little girls were obsessed with her. It felt nice to have a posse of fans, honestly. It was the one benefit of dancing her boring role. But it also meant that the kids would follow her around everywhere she went. Natasha didn’t really need seven little girls to accompany her to the bathroom or to her dressing room. Even after their rehearsal finished, they still seemed to be there, trailing behind her. Natasha knew of only one way to get rid of them.

“Hey, Tony,” Natasha greeted, walking into Tony’s office after rehearsal, followed by four little girls.

“Hey, Tasha,” Tony said, standing up from his desk to greet her.

“And who’s this?” He asked after a second, noting her following of little girls.

“Partygoers,” Natasha explained. 

“I think now would be a great time for them to have a party by themselves,” Tony said, closing the door on them.

Natasha laughed. “Thank you for that. They’ve been following me around all day and I couldn’t seem to get rid of them. I figured you could do the trick.”

“I’m always willing to get rid of little kids for you,” Tony said, sitting back in his chair. “Now, is that the only reason you came here?”  
“Well, I also love you, of course,” Natasha said, smiling at him.

“I watched the rehearsal today,” Tony said.

“Really?” Natasha asked, surprised.

It was rare for Tony to watch a rehearsal until the final dress rehearsal. He wasn’t really the person to try to critique anyone, seeing as he wasn’t trained in ballet. Well, he wasn’t trained in any type of dance. The only reason Tony had a job at the company was that his family owned it. He’d grown up learning the job, so it was natural for him to take it. But this watching rehearsals thing was very odd. The last time he’d done that it was so he could replace a dancer.

“Well, Maria was absolutely raving to me about how amazing you and Alexei are doing with your pas de deux,” Tony explained. “I figured it was only right for me to go and see if she was correct. And she was: you two are absolutely exceptional together. She was saying that we should take that into consideration when choosing the ballet for next season.”

“Well, Alexei and I would be honored to dance together again. We love it,” Natasha said.

“I’ll definitely be keeping that in mind,” Tony said.

So, that was it. Natasha had all but been casted as the lead in the next show. And with Alexei, whom she loved, as her partner. 

The only competition was Bucky and Elektra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you for continuing to read! The Epic Games sale that started today gave out a $10 coupon, so let me know if anyone has any recommendations. I personally recommend Detroit: Become Human. Anyways, Christmas is getting quite close, along with the end of this story. Stay tuned for tomorrow's chapter where Elektra has to make a pivotal choice on whether or not to be rude to Natasha.


	8. Chapter 8 - Elektra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elektra is forced to make a decision: befriend Nat, or remain her enemy.

Natasha Romanov was acting weird. Well, she was always acting weird, but this was particularly weird. Ever since Elektra had borrowed the cookie cutters from her, she was going between being extremely hostile and mildly pleasant. It was a new occurrence. It seemed to Elektra that something good may have happened to her. Maybe she was pregnant. That would make Elektra’s life a whole lot easier in the future. Regardless of what was going on with Natasha, Elektra was beginning to wish she had specifically auditioned for the Sugar Plum Fairy.

There was a group of little girls that was obsessed with following Natasha around. It was like she had a little fan club. Elektra, on the other hand, was completely ignored. She didn’t necessarily want a group of little girls to follow her around, but she was jealous they were trailing after Natasha and not her. After all, she was just as good as Natasha. She’d even gotten the role that Natasha had wanted. Well, Natasha could have her beloved Snow Queen back. Elektra didn’t want it anymore.

“I don’t want to deal with this anymore,” Elektra announced, walking into Bucky’s dressing room when their rehearsal commenced.

“Don’t want to deal with what anymore?” Bucky asked, pulling on a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

“Nat, mainly,” Elektra said.

Elektra fell back into Bucky’s armchair, playing up the drama for his entertainment. 

“What happened?” Bucky asked. “Did she do something?”

“I’m just so done with her. She’s so annoying towards me because she thinks every single thing I do is just to spite her,” Elektra explained.

“Well, that was true for a while, to be fair,” Bucky reasoned.

“But it isn’t anymore. I don’t want to waste all my energy on her. At this point, I just want to give her what she wants,” Elektra said.

“And what is it exactly that she wants?” Bucky questioned.

“The Snow Queen.”

Elektra wanted to spend some of her time not thinking about Natasha. But her only hobby was dance, which she did at rehearsal all day. Being at her apartment would just make her think about what had happened with the cookie cutters, which was exactly what she did not want to do. She could hang out with Bucky, but they’d already spent all day together. The only option was to spend more time with Bobby.

Bobby was overly in love with Elektra. Well, maybe it was the normal amount for a relationship, but not for Elektra. The extreme amount of affection was just not something she was used to. And she liked being able to spend time alone. But today she’d put that aside to make Bobby happy. Elektra knew he would be ecstatic to see her show up unannounced.

“Hi,” Elektra said, walking into Bobby’s house.

Bobby lived in a one bedroom house that he rented. It was relatively nice, but definitely not as cool as Elektra’s apartment. It just looked like a house. Everything had cream walls and dark hardwood floors. Honestly, all it was missing was a ‘live, laugh, love’ sign and a suburban mom could live there. It made sense that he wanted to move in with Elektra so bad considering where he lived.

“Elektra?” Bobby asked from the other room.

As soon as he walked out and saw her, Bobby wrapped Elektra in a warm hug. Yeah, he really loved her.

Elektra smiled and hugged him back. “I figured that I’d come and visit you after rehearsal.”

“Really? You never do that,” Bobby said.

That really pulled at Elektra’s heartstrings. Suddenly her eyes were open to the fact that Bobby probably didn’t feel very loved. She didn’t want him to move in with her, she didn’t go over to his place, and she spent a lot of their time together complaining about one thing or another. It was all Natasha’s fault. Well, it was caused by Natasha. She was so distracted by that all the time that she forgot how to live her own life. Damn, the situation was a lot more dreary than she’d originally thought.

“I’m going to start doing it now,” Elektra promised. 

“I love that,” Bobby enthused. “I love seeing you.”

“I love seeing you, too,” Elektra responded.

“Well, I was planning on going and getting a Christmas tree today. A real Christmas tree,” Bobby said.

“That sounds like a fun time. We could go and get coffee or something after, too,” Elektra suggested.

“You won’t be too bored with it because we just did your tree?” Bobby asked.

Elektra smiled at him and said, “I could never be bored around you.”

Elektra was now making the conscious choice to express her love towards Bobby. Maybe she should invite him to move in. If she ever needed alone time when they lived together, she could always go to the company and practice for a while. There was no longer a real downside to them living together. Besides, it would give her something to think about other than her rivalry with Natasha.

Bobby’s truck was super bougie, but it was still a truck. Elektra hated the idea of him always driving a truck when they went to go do things. However, it was convenient for the purpose of them buying a tree. Elektra had never had a real Christmas tree before. Her parents had never had enough time to go out and buy one. They always hired people to decorate the house for them. It was very exciting for her to be able to experience a full and authentic Christmas.

“Here we are,” Bobby announced, pulling into the Christmas tree farm. 

The Christmas tree farm had both trees you could cut down yourself and pre-cut trees. It was a little magical. Honestly, it felt like a Hallmark movie moment. There were a lot of other cars in the parking lot, but since it covered such a vast area of land, it didn’t seem like there were many people around. Bobby and Elektra could have their own romantic moment.

Bobby got out of his truck and then opened Elektra’s door so she could do the same. “Let's go find a tree.”

Elektra hopped out of the truck and grabbed his hand. “Are we cutting one down or just buying one?” She asked.

“Well, I was planning on just buying one, but we can cut one down if you want,” Bobby offered.

“No, we can just pick one,” Elektra said, gently swinging their hands between them.

They walked into the wall-less structure that contained all the pre-cut trees. It smelled absolutely amazing. It was a smell Elektra only experienced at other people’s houses or with her various candles. And now she would actually be able to experience it. Well, she would if she started spending more time at Bobby’s house. Maybe it would encourage her to spend more time with him. She loved spending time with him, she just found it hard to fit it into her schedule.

“Do you want a tall tree or a little one?” Elektra asked, wandering through the aisles of trees. 

“We can get whatever tree you want,” Bobby said. “It’s completely up to you.”

“I can’t decide between the super tiny and super huge,” Elektra said.

Bobby chuckled. “Well, keep in mind that my ceilings are not, like, twenty feet tall. So we can’t fit the tallest tree here in my house.”

“Someday I want a big house with super tall ceilings so we can put a humongous tree in it for Christmas,” Elektra said. 

“We?” Bobby asked, smiling at her.

Elektra blushed profusely. “Uh, yeah, we. If that’s okay with you, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s more than okay with me,” Bobby said. 

Elektra could see herself living with Bobby forever, but she wasn’t sure if they would get married. Something about marriage was just unappealing to her. Maybe it was because her parents didn’t have a very good relationship. They never should’ve gotten married in the first place. But Elektra definitely did want a huge house eventually. Though there wasn’t much room for a huge house in Minneapolis. Maybe she would have to move somewhere else.

“What do you think about this tree?” Elektra asked, pointing to a little four foot tall tree.

Bobby smiled. “If it’s the one you want, it’s perfect.”

“Well then it’s perfect. How do we, like, buy it?” Elektra asked.

“We just take it up to them and they’ll wrap it up for us and we’ll pay them,” Bobby explained.

Elektra let Bobby carry the little tree up to get wrapped up. She didn’t want to deal with the sap. If there was anything she hated in life, it was getting sticky hands. As they walked up to the attendant, Elektra noticed that quite a few more cars had pulled into the parking lot. It must have been a very popular place to buy a Christmas tree. Elektra watched all the cars pulling in and saw something peculiar out of the corner of her eye: Matt and Natasha.

“Shit, Natasha’s here,” Elektra said, walking close to Bobby.

“Just ignore her,” Bobby recommended. 

“I can’t, that would be considered rude,” Elektra said.

There was a battle happening in Elektra’s mind about whether or not she should be rude to Natasha. Being rude would give her satisfaction because Nat wasn’t exactly nice to her. But if she were nice first, maybe she and Natasha could make their relationship less hostile. This was a debate she’d been having constantly recently. It was just a lot to deal with their rivalry. It was often fun, but it was only fun until it wasn’t anymore.

Elektra began to walk towards where Natasha and Matt were coming in, knowing that they had seen her. They were both wearing long, black coats with black gloves. They were matching and, quite honestly, very cute. A small part of Elektra was jealous of their relationship. Yeah, maybe today would be a good day to be rude.

“Hello,” Elektra said, walking up to them.

“Hi,” Natasha said, hostiley.

“I didn’t expect you to get a real tree,” Matt said, holding Natasha’s hand as Bobby and Elektra had done earlier.

“Oh, I am not getting a real tree. It’s for my boyfriend, Bobby,” Elektra said, gesturing to where Bobby was getting their tree wrapped up.

“Have we met him before?” Natasha asked.

“I doubt it,” Elektra answered.

“I remember how it felt to not have anyone coming to support my performances, I’m sorry you have to go through that,” Natasha said, giving Elektra a sly smile.

Matt gently elbowed Natasha in the ribs. “Don’t,” He whispered.

“Oh, does Matt come to support your performances or mine?” Elektra questioned. “Because last time I checked he was interested in me before he was interested in you.”

Natasha blushed. “God, you’re such a bitch.”

Before Elektra could snap back, Natasha was storming back to her car. Damn, that must have struck a nerve. And Elektra wasn’t even saying it because she necessarily agreed with it. Obviously Natasha was already sore on the subject. Maybe there were some issues between her and Matt. A small part of Elektra felt bad about it. It was meant to be teasing, not actually offensive.

Elektra turned to Matt and said, “Hey, I’m really sorry if-”

“Just don’t,” Matt cut her off.

Matt walked back to their car and got in. Natasha quickly pulled out of the parking lot and presumably drove back to their apartment. That was not at all what Elektra was intending to do. And now she had to do the walk of shame back to Bobby, who was loading their tree into the bed of his truck. It was a little bit humiliating.

“Hey,” Bobby greeted, securing the tree in for transport. “How did it go with Natasha?”  
Elektra blushed. “Yeah, I don’t really want to talk about that.”

“Something bad happened?” Bobby asked.

Elektra merely shrugged and got into the truck. She knew Bobby wouldn’t exactly be happy about what happened, either. He’d definitely be disappointed in her. He thought more highly of her than he probably should have. In all reality, Elektra wasn’t the best person. She tried to be good most of the time, but she just couldn’t control herself when she was around Natasha. Something about it just triggered her.

Bobby got in on the other side and sighed. “You can just tell me what happened, Elektra. I don’t like you keeping things from me.”

“It’s embarrassing, darling, you don’t want to hear about it,” Elektra stated.

“Baby, I always am willing to hear about your issues,” Bobby said.

Fuck, he was too sweet for her. She didn’t deserve to be treated so nicely by someone. She wasn’t a good enough person for that.

“I just can’t, I’m sorry. But I’m going to make myself better, I promise,” Elektra said.

“Elektra, you’re already great right now. I just want you to be honest with me. Even if you did something bad, I want to hear about it. I want to know everything there is to know about you. I don’t care if it’s terrible or boring, I just want to know you as authentically as possible. I love you, even the bad parts,” Bobby rambled.

“I love you too, baby,” Elektra said.

Bobby pulled out of the parking lot and began the drive back to his house. Elektra made the decision then and there to spend the night. After he just professed his love for her, it would be wrong not to.

“All I can say about what happened is that I crossed a line,” Elektra explained.

“What line?” Bobby inquired.

“You know, I’m not too sure yet. But I’m determined to fix it,” Elektra said. 

Because she had obviously struck a nerve at the Christmas tree farm, Elektra decided she was going to be nice to Natasha the next day. Well, it was less of being nice and more of doing something nice. She arrived at the company early, as always, but she didn’t go straight to her dressing room like normal. In fact, she didn’t go to a rehearsal studio, either. She decided to go somewhere she never dared to go: Tony’s office.

“What brings you here today?” Tony asked, barely looking up from his computer as she walked in. “And this early, at that.”

“There are just some things that I feel like we need to talk about,” Elektra said.

Tony turned towards her and looked up at her. “Things such as?”

“Natasha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I'm working really hard to make sure I can get out a chapter daily, so hopefully that continues to work. Thank you so much for continuing to read this story and support me, it means a lot. We're only one week away from Christmas. Stay tuned for tomorrow's chapter where Natasha gets big news.


	9. Chapter 9 - Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha finally figures Elektra out. Or, she thinks she did.

Elektra Natchios was a heartless bitch. She didn’t care about anyone’s feelings other than her own. And for some reason it was her mission to make Natasha’s life miserable. Elektra’s latest task seemed to be driving a wedge between Matt and Natasha. It all began when she came over to get the cookie cutters when Natasha wasn’t home. And then when she returned them, it resulted in Matt becoming upset at Natasha. This time, she decided to take a direct jab at their relationship by referencing the fact that Matt was actually talking to Elektra when he and Natasha first met. It hurt.

“I understand what you mean now,” Matt said to Natasha as she drove them home from the Christmas tree farm without a tree. 

“You understand what?” Natasha asked, glancing over at him.

“Elektra. Why you feel the way you do about her,” Matt explained. “She knows what to say and do to make you upset, and that’s what she does. You were right. She does go out of her way to make your life miserable.”

Natasha smiled and little. “Thank you.”

“But now we don’t have a tree. I feel like we still do need to get a tree,” Matt said.

“Maybe we should just get a fake tree,” Natasha suggested. “It is a little hard for us to bring the tree in and out of our apartment.”

“That’s true. Let’s go to Walmart right now and pick one up,” Matt said.

Going to Walmart and picking up a fake tree was exactly what Matt and Natasha decided to do. A tree wasn’t all they picked up, though. They also got Christmas lights, eggnog, and some premade Christmas cookies. If they were going to put up a Christmas tree, it made sense to make an entire night out of it. Natasha was already planning the Christmas album she would play and the Christmas candle she would burn as they set up the tree.

Natasha carried all their new items up to the apartment because she didn’t like making Matt do that type of stuff, as much as he hated it. She just didn’t want anything to go wrong, even though she knew he had a handle on himself. As soon as they walked into the apartment, Matt pulled out two glasses and filled them with eggnog. Not even spiked eggnog, just the plain stuff.

“Thanks, baby,” Natasha said, taking a sip of her drink.

“Anything for you,” Matt said. “Do you need help setting the tree up?”  
“No, I can do it myself,” Natasha said.

“Just let me know if you need any help,” Matt said.

There were a few things that were hard about having a blind boyfriend. Natasha’s main issue was that Matt felt like he could do a lot more things than Natasha felt he could do. She never wanted him to something where there was a possibility of him failing. That sounded like some weird statement some dance mom would make, but she knew he would get upset if his blindness ever prevented him from doing something. Natasha just wanted to protect Matt. And that’s what she felt she was doing by not having him help put the tree together. She’d ask for help with the ornaments, though.

As Natasha put together the tree, Matt drank his eggnog and ate some of the Christmas cookies. They did have a nice winter candle burning and the Leslie Odom Jr Christmas album playing. It definitely felt like Christmas. As soon as Natasha finished putting the tree together, she pulled out all the decorations and put on the lights. Having Matt help with the lights felt a little too risky.

“Ready to help with some ornaments?” Natasha asked, munching on a cookie.

“Ready as I'll ever be,” Matt replied.

Their ornament collection was very eclectic. About half were from Matt's childhood, a quarter from Natasha’s, and the rest they had purchased for their place. Before they met each other, none of them had celebrated Christmas in their adult lives. Both of them were very glad to have it back.

The first ornament Matt put on the tree was one given to him by his dad when he was a child. All it was was a simple star, but it was very dear to Matt’s heart. Natasha thought it was sweet. His dad had died when he was just a child, but Matt seemed to be constantly thinking about him. And his mom. Natasha's parents were still alive, she just didn't seem them. But that was a story for another time.

“I still remember getting every one of these ornaments,” Matt said as he hung up more of his ornaments.

“Really?” Natasha asked.

“Mhmm. They were all special to me. Especially the ones from my dad. I miss him a lot,” Matt said.

Natasha ran her hand down his back. “I know, baby.”

“But now I have you,” Matt said.

Natasha smiled. “Awe, that’s so sweet. I’m not sure I’m necessarily the best replacement for him, though.”

“I love you regardless. We started decorating the office today, you know,” Matt said.

“Yeah? That’s fun. I wish we decorate the company. I mean, someone does it eventually, but only right before our first Nutcracker performance,” Natasha reflected.

“It was a good time,” Matt said.

Matt had been talking about work less and less recently. Natasha had absolutely no clue why. It was honestly beginning to get a little odd. What was happening at work that he didn’t want to tell her about? Was he secretly working on some high profile case? But even then, he always told Natasha about everything going on with him. That’s probably why what Elektra said had stung so badly.

“Well, I’m glad you guys are having a good time at work,” Natasha said. “It’s always very important to have a nice work environment.”

Matt simply hummed in response. Damn it. She was trying to prompt him to talk about whatever was going on at work, but that plan obviously failed. Oh well, she could always call one of his colleagues.

Natasha let Matt deal with most of the decorating. She just sat back and watched, eating cookies and drinking eggnog. It was a nice night. The calmness of her night didn’t last long, however. When she woke up in the morning, she had to get ready for a day at the company. Natasha was dreading seeing Elektra again, even if it was just in passing. But at least she’d get to see and dance with Alexei.

The door to Natasha’s dressing room was open when Natasha arrived at the company. While their dressing rooms didn’t have locks, no one ever entered someone else’s room without permission. Natasha assumed it had been Elektra. When she walked in and turned on the light, there was something abnormal. There was a clothing rack with the Snow Queen costume on it in the middle of the room.

Natasha pushed the rack to the corner of her room and decided to ignore it for now. Elektra was obviously trying to play some cruel trick on her. She didn’t want to let it bother her, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. They hadn’t done costume fittings yet, how did she get the costume to put it in here? And why had no one from the costume department noticed?

As Natasha was rolling out her legs on the floor, Bucky walked into her dressing room in his street clothes.

“Hey,” Bucky said, tiredly.

“Hi. We put up our Christmas tree last night,” Natasha said.

“Really?” Bucky asked, sitting down on her chair. “I’m not doing a tree at my apartment this year. I’m going over to Steve’s for Christmas so I felt like there was no point.”

“But it’s so fun to decorate,” Natasha said.

“I might help him decorate his place,” Bucky said. “But he and Sam might also want to do that together, which is fine.”

“Sam likes you, doesn’t he?” Natasha questioned.

“Well yeah, I just don’t want to intrude on their time,” Bucky answered.

“They live together, they spend all their time at home together. They’ll be fine,” Natasha said. 

“Yeah, we’ll just have to wait and see,” Bucky said.

Natasha got up and began securing her hair in a bun. She hadn’t done it at home because she didn’t feel like she had enough time to do it perfectly. If Natasha was going to do something, she wanted to do it perfectly. 

“What’s this?” Bucky asked, getting up and walking over to the costume rack.

“Oh, it’s the Snow Queen costume,” Natasha explained. “I think Elektra put it in here to try to psych me out. I saw her when we were going to get our tree and she was being a massive bitch.”

“But we haven’t even done our costume fittings yet, I don’t understand how she could get that,” Bucky said.

“She always wants to fuck me up or fuck me over, I’m not surprised,” Natasha said.

“I’m just confused by it,” Bucky said, carefully picking up the costume. “I mean, this doesn’t look like her size. It for sure hasn’t been fitted to her.”

“She just wants me to look at it and be jealous and sad that I’m not the Snow Queen, I’m just the lowly Sugar Plum Fairy,” Natasha stated.

Bucky walked over to Natasha and held the costume up to her body. “Well, it looks like it would fit you. Try it on.”

Just to entertain Bucky, Natasha put the costume on over her leotard. She figured there was no harm in doing so. As soon as she slipped in on, she noticed how perfectly it fit. She looked in the mirror and was suddenly sad. It just looked right. It looked like she was meant to wear this costume and dance this role. So Elektra’s plan had worked.

“That fits you perfectly,” Bucky commented.

“I can’t even remember who wore it last year. I feel like all the principals are slightly different sizes,” Natasha said.

“Yeah, they are,” Bucky affirmed.

Natasha took off the costume almost as soon as it was on, not wanting to make herself too upset that it wasn’t her reality. Besides, her Sugar Plum costume would be gorgeous and fit perfectly as well. This wasn’t going to be some once in a lifetime, Cinderella type fit.

“I don’t understand Elektra sometimes,” Bucky said. “It doesn’t make sense to me why she’s so concerned with damaging your ego. That isn’t going to make her a better dancer.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me, either,” Natasha said.

All the stuff Elektra had done during the Nutcracker season felt way out of line in Natasha’s eyes. She’d brought Matt into it way too many times. Matt was in no way involved with Elektra, she didn’t need to use him as a weapon. Although, what she had said at the Christmas tree farm was true. Matt was talking to Elektra when they first met. Oh god, that was it.

“She’s in love with Matt,” Natasha said. 

“What?” Bucky exclaimed, turning to face her.

“That’s why she’s making my life a living hell,” Natasha explained. 

“Ohhhh, because of how you and Matt met?” Bucky asked. 

“Yeah. Well, I think. I’m pretty sure that she was trying to get with him that night. But he decided to get with me instead,” Natasha explained. “But it never would’ve even worked. Matt has told me he wasn’t interested in dating her in the first place. He claims he’d had his eyes on me all night.”

“Not to be insensitive, but how would he even been able to tell which one was you?” Bucky questioned. 

“I just don’t question it, it’s a sweet story,” Natasha said, smiling at him.

Bucky smiled back at her. “Matt’s just a cute guy.”

Alexei and Natasha had scheduled to work with Maria again. They loved hearing her feedback, which was mainly praise. When Natasha and Alexei walked into their practice studio, however, Maria wasn’t in there. Natasha had no idea why. Maybe there was a miscommunication on timing? Obviously something had gone wrong in some way or another. 

“Maybe we should just run through it once without her,” Alexei suggested. “You know, just to pass the time and make sure we aren’t too rusty.”

“I guess we could do that,” Natasha replied, plugging her phone into the speaker in the corner of the room.

As Natasha was getting the music set up, someone walked into the studio. But it wasn’t Maria. It was Tony.

“I have something to talk to you two about,” Tony announced as he walked into the room.

“Did something happen to Maria?” Alexei asked, genuine concern seeping into his voice.

“No, but she’s not going to be working with you two this morning,” Tony stated.

“Oh? Then who is?” Natasha inquired.

“Me,” Tony answered.

Tony didn’t know anything about dance. How would he be able to critique their routine? The only thing he could really comment on was expression or if there was a major mess up. And with Natasha and Alexei, there was never going to be a major mess up. Although Tony had said nothing happened to Maria, Natasha was incredibly skeptical. There was no other reason why she wouldn’t be working with them.

“So, do you just want to see us do it once or what?” Alexei asked.

“Yes, please, go ahead,” Tony said, gesturing for them to start. 

Natasha and Alexei took their starting positions and danced. It wasn’t as good as the last time they had performed for Maria, but it was still absolutely outstanding. There was almost nothing to critique, and certainly nothing for Tony to comment on. Natasha felt extremely satisfied with what they had presented to Tony.

“Yes, it’s just as I had thought,” Tony said, walking towards them.

“What is?” Natasha asked.

Tony had said that like whatever was coming was a bad thing. But Natasha couldn’t think of anything that they’d done wrong. They’d spent hours absolutely perfecting this piece, even if they found it boring. And they certainly didn’t perform it like they found it boring.

“You guys can’t dance this piece,” Tony said.

Natasha’s heart fell through her stomach. She didn’t want to be a party guest. She’d come too far, trained too hard, to be a party guest. And she thought Tony loved her. Why would he do this to her?

“What? That was a nearly perfect performance,” Alexei argued.

“Oh, I’m not saying it wasn’t,” Tony said.

“Well then what exactly are you saying?” Natasha asked.

Tony smiled at them and said, “I think I’ve found my new Snow Queen and Snow King.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you for continuing to read! Stay tuned for tomorrow where Elektra and Bobby have some cute moments!


	10. Chapter 10 - Elektra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elektra discovers that there was a bit of collateral damage to her role switching. Additionally, she and Bobby have a wholesome night in.

Natasha Romanov was the Snow Queen. Elektra had decided to go to Tony and request that they switch roles. She didn’t know what else she could do. It was clear to her that she had really dug deep with her last comment to Natasha, she had to do something to at least attempt to fix it. Elektra decided to talk to Tony to try to forfeit her role to Natasha. Plus, the perks of being the Sugar Plum Fairy were looking better than ever. Honestly, Elektra would benefit from the trade even more than Natasha would.

“What’s going on?” Bucky asked, walking into Elektra’s dressing room. “Tony said we’ve been moved to Sugar Plum. I’m so confused. Why does this always happen to me?”

Fuck, Elektra had forgotten about the collateral damage. It wasn’t Bucky’s fault that Natasha and Elektra were both unhappy with their roles. She didn’t even consider that Sugar Plum may have been a demotion in Bucky’s eyes. Not to mention the fact that in their last show, Swan Lake, Bucky had been removed from his role very last minute. At least it proved Tony was willing to do whatever it took to make a show the best it could possibly be.

“Look, Bucky, I’m sorry,” Elektra began.

“When will this petty feud just stop?” Bucky demanded. “I’m tired of being caught in the middle of this.”

“I was trying to fix it. That’s why I gave my role up,” Elektra explained.

“Yeah, well, you also gave up mine,” Bucky said. 

“I just wanted Natasha to be happy. I don’t want this stupid fighting to go on any more than you do,” Elektra said.

“Yet you continue to be a bitch to Natasha!” Bucky exclaimed.

“Bucky, I am trying my best, that much I assure you,” Elektra reasoned. “I knew that after everything I’ve done, no apology will mean anything to Nat. So I decided to give her the one thing she wants: Snow Queen.”

“And what if Snow King was the one thing I wanted?” Bucky asked.

Elektra sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Bucky, I don’t know what you want me to do here.”

“I want you to consult me before making choices that directly affect  _ my _ life,” Bucky persisted. “I don’t understand what’s so hard to understand about that for all you people. You’ve done it, Tony’s done it, Steve’s done it, everyone keeps doing it. Stop making major life decisions for me!”

“I really wasn’t trying to do that,” Elektra insisted.

“Well you did,” Bucky said.

Maybe he was right, maybe Elektra had overstepped her bounds. But it had been Tony who made the final decision, hadn’t it been? All Elektra had really done was make a suggestion. Tony was the person he should’ve been mad at. Tony wouldn’t have switched the roles if he didn’t think it would make for a better performance. Bucky had misguided anger.

“Be upset with Tony, he’s the one who switched the roles,” Elektra said.

“Because of you!” Bucky shouted.

“Why don’t we learn our parts separately today and then rehearsal together tomorrow,” Elektra suggested.

“Perfect,” Bucky grumbled, storming out of her dressing room.

Elektra didn’t allow herself to get upset by what had happened with Bucky. She knew that it wasn’t her fault. Besides, she’d worked hard to try to fix things with Natasha. Being Nat’s best friend, Bucky should have understood that. This would only make things easier for him. Since he needed some time to cool down, Elektra grabbed a rehearsal studio for herself. She’d danced the Sugar Plum Fairy a few years before, she knew what she was doing.

The Sugar Plum Fairy variation was so iconic, Elektra knew she had to perform it perfectly. She felt like her first run through was pretty close to that. Honestly, it would be as good, if not better, than what Natasha could have done. As Elektra was doing some cool-down stretches after two hours of rehearsing, she noticed Natasha walk by her studio. For once, she didn’t look absolutely pissed off. Elektra felt accomplished.

After she finished rehearsing alone, Elektra decided to drop by Bobby’s house. There was no full run through, or remotely full run through, because it was a Wednesday and dance moms got mad about those sorts of things. Ever since they went to buy a Christmas tree, Elektra felt even more connection and love towards Bobby. Something about that evening had sparked a flame within her. 

“Hi, darling,” Elektra greeted, walking into Bobby’s house.

“I wasn’t expecting you to come over tonight,” Bobby said from his spot on the couch.

“And it isn’t even night, it’s afternoon,” Elektra said.

“What’s the occasion?” Bobby asked.

Elektra walked over to him and smiled down at him. “I just love you.”

“I love you too, baby,” Bobby said.

“I think I may have done something bad today,” Elektra said, sitting down next to him and leaning against him.

“Yeah? What happened?” Bobby asked.

“Well, it’s a little complex,” Elektra began. “I basically wanted to fix everything with Natasha. I felt bad about what happened at the tree farm. So I decided to ask Tony to give Nat my part, which she wanted. But now Bucky is mad at me for it and I don’t completely understand why.”

“I’m sure he just liked his part,” Bobby reasoned.

“Well I feel bad,” Elektra stated.

“You know, sometimes you just have to remember that not everything is about you,” Bobby advised. “It’s very possible that he has something else going on in his life that’s making him so upset. Don’t be mad at him when you don’t know what he’s going through.”

That wasn’t bad advice, but Bucky had a seemingly perfect life. It was hard to imagine there being anything going on to make him upset. It really felt like he was just upset with her. But she wouldn’t jump to conclusions. Elektra would just allow it to float to the back of her mind until rehearsal the next day.

“Do you wanna do anything today?” Bobby asked, wrapping his arm around Elektra’s shoulders.

“That would be nice,” Elektra responded.

“I agree. I’m just not too sure what we should do,” Bobby said.

“Hmmm… We could do something Christmas-y,” Elektra suggested.

“Such as…?” Bobby prompted.

“Well, we already decorated both of our houses and we made Christmas cookies, so that doesn’t leave a lot of things. And we don’t have the right type of snow, or enough of it, for a snowman or snow fort or anything,” Elektra said.

“We could drive around and look at the Christmas lights later tonight,” Bobby proposed.

“There’s a few hours until it’s dark out,” Elektra stated.

Bobby kissed her cheek and smiled at her. “We could fill that time.”

Ew. Absolutely not. Elektra did not want to spend her mid-afternoon having sex with Bobby. Not that she didn’t like having sex with Bobby, this was just not the way she liked to go about it. And she would never do it earlier than nine at night. If she wanted to get out of that, she’d have to find something else to fill their time.

“There are a lot of options for Christmas movies that we could watch,” Elektra said.

“But they’re all the same,” Bobby said.

Elektra smiled at him. “I could help clean your apartment up. I know how much you hate doing that.”

“That does not sound like a fun time at all,” Bobby said.

“I just want to be helpful,” Elektra stated.

Bobby carefully combed his fingers through Elektra’s midnight hair. It felt very nice. “I know, baby. But I’d rather we do something that’s actually fun.”

“Oh, I know something fun and romantic that we could do,” Elektra said.

“Yeah? What is it?” Bobby inquired.

“We can make chocolate covered strawberries. They’re delicious and very easy to make,” Elektra said.

“We can do that, but we’ll have to run to the store first,” Bobby said.

That’s how Elektra once again found herself sitting in the passenger seat of Bobby’s truck. Because she didn’t really have any friends, she wasn’t too worried about anyone seeing her in it. As much as she didn’t like the truck, she did like how high up it sat. To get both the strawberries and chocolate candy melts, Elektra suggested they go to Hyvee. Hyvee was the best grocery store ever. Inside it was a clinic, post office, shoe store, clothing store, restaurants, and, of course, a grocery store. Elektra loved to do all her shopping there, even if she always spent more money than she intended.

Elektra practically sprinted into the store when they arrived. Only upon entering did she realize that she was still wearing her leotard with sweatpants over it. Well, at least she wasn’t at a Lunds and Byerlys. Upon entering, Elektra went straight towards the bakery counter. It was a lot more fancy than your average grocery store bakery, with cakes and cookies of all sizes and prices. There were even some chocolate covered strawberries. But that would take away from the fun of it all.

“You really booked it in here,” Bobby laughed, catching up to Elektra in the produce section.

“I love a good grocery store,” Elektra stated.

Elektra picked up a sweet potato the size of her head and held it out to Bobby. “Look at this. Isn’t it crazy? That’s why I love this store as much as I do.”

“I see. Maybe let’s find the crazy big strawberries now instead of yams,” Bobby suggested. 

“The fact that you just called a sweet potato a yam is kind of upsetting to me,” Elekta said.

“Are they the same?” Bobby asked.

“No, not exactly,” Elektra said. “But I’m not quite sure on the exact difference. All I know is that they’re not the same.”

“Regardless, we don’t need any,” Bobby said, walking over to the berries.

There was a wide variety of berries. Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and everything in between. Not to mention the different variations within each berry. Elektra wanted to get the big, red, juicy strawberries. She preferred to have a high ratio of strawberry to chocolate. That’s the only other thing they had to get, chocolate melts. Elektra grabbed the best looking strawberries she could find and handed them to Bobby.

“I get to carry the groceries?” Bobby asked, smiling at her.

“Yes, that’s your job,” Elektra replied, smiling back at him.

“I suppose I can accept that,” Bobby said.

Elektra wove through the aisles, looking for chocolates. When she came across the aisle, she knew it would be almost impossible to leave the store with only two items. There was just such a big variety of, well, everything. Elektra was a sucker for imported, dark chocolates. Especially the truffles. Either she could buy some now, or just give a lot of hints to Bobby to get her some for Christmas.

“Look at all this,” Elektra said, gesturing to the chocolate aisle. 

“That’s a lot of chocolate,” Bobby said.

Elektra giggled. “I don’t think there’s enough chocolate here. I could eat five billion dark chocolate truffles and still need more.”

“Maybe we should get some dark chocolate truffles, then,” Bobby suggested.

“I don’t know how we could choose just one type,” Elektra observed.

Without saying anything, Bobby grabbed five boxes of chocolates and one bag of candy melts. It was official: Bobby was perfect. They only came for candy melts and strawberries, so Elektra led them to the self checkouts. Elektra grabbed a cranberry Sprite and added it onto their conveyor belt. She needed something to put her in the holiday spirit.

“I thought you didn’t drink soda because of dance?” Bobby questioned.

Elektra blushed profusely. “I mean, I don’t drink it often. But I still do drink it sometimes. I mainly drink smoothies and water.”

“I honestly don’t know the last time I saw you drink soda,” Bobby said.

“I try my best not to,” Elektra said.

Bobby bagged up all their items and carried them out to the car. The way that he always took care of her without her asking first was amazing. Growing up, Elektra’s parents hadn’t really taken care of her in that way. They had always just hired a nanny or babysitter to do whatever she asked them to. She wasn’t used to someone doing nice things for her with no motivation other than to be nice. 

“Bobby?” Elektra asked, climbing into his truck.

“Hmm?” He responded.

“I’ve been thinking about it and I do want you to move in with me,” Elektra said.

Bobby turned towards her, a huge grin overtaking his face. “What? Are you being serious right now?”  
“Completely serious.”

Bobby hugged Elektra and kissed her all over her face. He was completely overjoyed. It felt as though she had just given him the best gift ever. And in a way, she had. But it wasn’t a completely selfless gift. Elektra would benefit immensely from Bobby living with her. He would always cook, clean, and just generally take care of her. Though that wasn’t her motivation for inviting him to move in: she just loved him.

“I want to start packing right now,” Bobby enthused, walking into his house.

Elektra laughed. “It might be a bit soon for that, darling.”

“Oh, it’s never too soon,” Bobby said. “I will literally move in with you tonight.”

“Darling, I’m not even ready for that tonight,” Elektra said.

Bobby stuck out his tongue at her. “Meanie. Okay. Well, I guess I’ll get ready to move in next week.”

“Try after Nutcracker season,” Elektra suggested.

And just like that, Bobby and Elektra were going to live together. He didn’t wait to start moving in until Nutcracker season like she’d asked: he started the next day. It was hard for her to give up some of her private space, but she was willing to make that sacrifice for him. The one thing that was a little annoying about Bobby moving all his stuff in was that she hadn’t made him a copy of the key yet. This meant that he either had to let Elektra know ahead of time that he was coming or he’d have to knock.

That’s why Elektra was expecting Bobby when someone knocked on the door, not Natasha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading! I'm trying to figure out what the post schedule for the next fic in the series will be. Definitely not daily again. If anyone has a preference as to once a week or twice a week, please let me know. Additionally, please let me know if there's a preferred day of the week for posting. Stay tuned for tomorrow's chapter where we'll see what Natasha has to say to Elektra.


	11. Chapter 11 - Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha gets the good news. She's just not so sure she can trust that it's a good thing.

Elektra Natchios was a manipulative bitch. She always seemed to find a way to get what she wanted. And a lot of what she wanted involved Natasha. The one thing she was unable to manipulate from Natasha was Matt, which it seemed she was still upset about. But now she’d given up her role to Natasha. It couldn’t just be giving it to Natasha, could it? It seemed impossible that Elektra would do something to in any way benefit Natasha. There had to be some sort of manipulation going on.

“I got the Snow Queen,” Natasha announced, walking into her apartment after her first day of learning her new role.

“I feel like I’m experiencing something weird right now. Either I’m dreaming or I just woke up from a very long dream,” Matt said from somewhere in the kitchen.

“No, Tony switched our roles,” Natasha said.

Matt walked out from the kitchen and wrapped his arms around Natasha from behind. “Well, congratulations, in that case.”

“I think Elektra had something to do with it. She seemed way too happy about it. She should not be happy about me getting the role that I wanted,” Natasha expressed.

“You’re right. But why would she do that?” Matt asked.

Natasha sighed and leaned back against him. “That’s what I’m going to try to find out.”

The apartment was now fully decorated for Christmas and it made Natasha immensely happy. For a lot of people, seeing the Nutcracker put them in the holiday spirit. It was the exact opposite for Natasha. Being in the Nutcracker crushed her holiday spirit, so she had to overcompensate by doing lots of festive activities and decorating her apartment. It just made her feel happy.

“I was thinking about inviting Steve to come over tomorrow while you and Bucky have rehearsal,” Matt said, resting his chin on the top of Natasha’s head.

“Feel free. I love Steve and Bucky so I’m glad you also like them,” Natasha said.

“They’re really fun people,” Matt said.

Natasha was always worried that she and Matt only hung out with her friends, not his. The fact that he and Steve were getting close was a major win in her book. She didn’t want Matt to not like her friends or to feel like he could never hang out with his friends. Although he pretty much spent all day with them. His best friend, Foggy, was his coworker. So they did see each other during work and they often went for drinks after work. It felt very mundane, which Natasha thought was cute. 

“Why haven’t you been at work recently?” Natasha asked bluntly.

She’d been noticing for a while now that Matt always seemed to be home when she left for rehearsal and when she got home from rehearsal, regardless of what time the rehearsal started at. It was odd because Matt was somewhat of a workaholic: he loved what he did. Natasha could not imagine a world where Matt didn’t want to be constantly working. She was honestly a little bit worried about him.

Matt blushed. “I’ve been working from home,” he stated.

“But why?” Natasha questioned. 

“I just work better from home,” Matt said, defensively.

“Matt, you and I both know that’s not true,” Natasha said. “If it were true, you would’ve been working from home all along. And you aren’t even doing any work right now. Just tell me what’s going on, please. I don’t like dealing with this back and forth and confusion.”

Matt blushed and said quietly, “We just don’t have any cases right now.”

“Wait, what? Why not?” Natasha asked.

Matt shrugged. “If I knew, I would fix it.”

“That’s impossible. You’re always swamped with work,” Natasha insisted.

“Well, there is one case, but Foggy’s working on it and not me,” Matt said.

“I don’t understand this at all,” Natasha said. “Why would you not have any cases? You literally have to turn down clients because you have too much to work on.”

“Not anymore,” Matt said.

Matt and his firm were very reputable. They always had five million things going on at once and people lined up out of the door waiting to see them. It didn’t make sense to Natasha that they could only have one case. There had to have been something Matt wasn’t telling her. Seeing as he’d already told her why he was really home, she wasn’t going to pry into it any more. She would get that information out of him eventually.

Without anything being explicitly said, Natasha could tell that Bucky was upset. She’d thought about it quite a lot, but she couldn’t think of anything she’d done wrong. Unless he thought that she was the reason their roles got switched. Elektra probably would have told him that just to make upset with her. Regardless of why Bucky was upset, Natasha was determined to fix it. She decided to visit Bucky directly to try and clear the air.

“Hey,” Natasha said, walking into Bucky’s apartment unannounced.

Bucky was doing something on his phone while lying on the couch and didn’t respond. Damn, he really was upset. Natasha gently moved his feet off the end of the couch and sat down.

“How’s it going?” Natasha asked.

“It’s going,” Bucky responded.

“You seem a little bit upset recently,” Natasha said.

Bucky rolled his eyes and said sarcastically, “Oh really? And what would make you think that?”

“Just tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it,” Natasha begged.

“I lost my role,” Bucky said. “You wouldn’t understand that because you got the role you wanted.”

“Honestly, I wasn’t even that upset about my role anymore,” Natasha said.

“Oh, but you just  _ had  _ to go and complain to Tony about it, didn’t you?” Bucky asked.

“Bucky, that wasn’t why he switched the roles,” Natasha explained. “He switched them because Maria told him that Alexei and I were good partners. And Elektra did something, I know she did.”

“Look, Nat, I’m not even mad at you,” Bucky said.

Natasha gave him a blank stare. Was this all for nothing? She had come here to make up with him when there wasn’t even anything to make up for. God, Elektra was really starting to mess up every single part of her life.

“I’m just generally upset with what happened, it has nothing to do with any one person,” Bucky said.

“I’m sorry that it’s not a good situation for you. You keep getting your good roles snatched away from you after you’ve already secured them,” Natasha stated.

“I know. It sucks,” Bucky said.

Natasha sighed and looked around Bucky’s apartment. He wasn’t lying about having no Christmas decorations up. Despite that, his apartment certainly wasn’t bland. His living room was covered in tie-dye draperies and there were practically a million rugs on the ground. Steve had helped him decorate. Ever since he started dating Steve, he seemed a lot more like himself.

“So, are you excited to spend Christmas with Steve this year?” Natasha asked, propping her feet up on Bucky’s Ikea coffee table. 

“I’m actually pretty excited, yeah. Sam is going to his parents’ house so we’ll be alone, even,” Bucky said.

Natasha smiled at him and wiggled her eyebrows. “Ooh, spicy.”

“It actually is a little spicy because he’ll be gone from the twenty forth to the twenty sixth, so we’ll have quite a bit of alone time. It’ll be kinda weird, though. I’ve only spent the night there, like, two times,” Bucky said.

“Their house is really nice, but it’s so… clean,” Natasha said.

“It’s definitely not like my apartment at all,” Bucky laughed.

It was true. Bucky’s apartment was extremely chaotic, but not in a bad way. It reminded Natasha of the cool, older, alternative friend’s bedroom in a teen movie. Steve’s house, on the other hand, was pristine. Everything was white and nothing was ever out of place, especially in Steve’s bedroom. Steve would go crazy if even one singular piece of paper was out of place. It reminded Natasha of the way Matt was with their apartment. He always wanted everything to be perfectly clean and neat looking.

“I love your apartment though. And his house. And my apartment. I love it all. Everyone that I know lives in a nice looking place,” Natasha said.

“It’s that company money,” Bucky said, smiling at her.

Natasha blew air out of her nose. “You wish.”

One thing about having a career in the arts was that it didn’t pay very well. And Natasha was one of the highest paid people in the company. Matt’s salary was really the only thing keeping them in their bougie apartment. Natasha was honestly not sure how Elektra could afford to live in the building, she made the same amount of money that Natasha did. Though it was very possible she came from a family with money. 

“Natasha?” Bucky asked, sitting up and turning to face her. 

“Yes?” Natasha replied.

“I miss you,” Bucky stated. “I feel like we never really get to see each other now that its Nutcracker season and I have a boyfriend. We need to start going to yoga and pilates together again.”

“Definitely.”

Bucky was Natasha's best friend and she never wanted to give up on that. He was a really sweet, genuinely good guy. She had to remember to make time for him even as her life became more chaotic. It was just hard for her to remember to do anything other than dance and spend time with Matt. Her priorities in life were just so focused around her job. She did see Bucky at work, though. In fact, they probably spent fifteen minutes together everyday in her dressing room. It was one of the best parts of Natasha’s day.

When Natasha came home from Bucky’s apartment, Matt wasn’t there. But he didn’t leave her a note or send her a text or anything. It was strange behavior for him, but she wasn’t worried about it. Obviously all the talk about his job had bothered him, so he probably just needed some time alone. Natasha wasn’t going to freak out and try to find him for that reason.

Natasha walked into the kitchen and dug through their stainless steel fridge, searching for something, anything to eat. Sadly, the only things they had were ingredients for other things. Natasha didn’t want to eat raw beans or tomatoes. Discouraged, Natasha decided to just find something else to do. But all she wanted to do was hang out with her boyfriend. God, this was turning into a really annoying day. And, honestly, Elektra could be blamed for it all.

Throwing her shoes back on, Natasha marched up to Elektra’s apartment. Elektra couldn’t continue to get away with fucking with other people’s lives. She knocked on the door aggressively, not even really wanting to see Elektra.

“I’m coming,” Elektra called before opening the door.

Her face fell the moment she saw Natasha. “What brings you here?” She asked.

“I think we need to talk,” Natasha said. 

Elektra stepped aside, allowing Natasha to come in. Elektra’s apartment was a mix between Steve’s house and Natasha’s own apartment. It had a similar vibe to Natasha’s place because they were in the same building, but she definitely was very into the all white look like Steve was. It was honestly really nice. And it was a loft. It definitely felt a lot like Elektra

“So, what is it that we need to talk about?” Elektra asked, leaning against her kitchen island.

“Why did you get the roles switched?” Natasha demanded.

“Oh, you think I changed the roles?” Elektra laughed. “I don’t know why everyone keeps thinking that. Honestly, I’m flattered that you all think I have that much power. But the sad fact is, I don’t. Why do you think that I would give up such a good role? Just to please you?”

“Well obviously you had some sort of motivation. I want to know what it is,” Natasha said.

“Natasha, why is this so hard for you to understand? Tony made the decision. He wouldn’t even listen to me, he hates me. He’s more likely to listen to you,” Elektra said.

Natasha sat down on one of the barstools and sighed. “Look, I know you did something. You put the costume in my dressing room, at least.”

“I did do that. I thought it was a nice touch,” Elektra said, smiling at her. 

The costume department wasn’t just always open, someone had to be working there for it to be unlocked. Elektra for sure didn’t have a key, and it was there way too early for anyone who actually worked in the department to be around. Not to mention the fact that it was fitted perfectly to her body. That felt like way too big of a feat for Elektra to accomplish.

“How did you even do that?” Natasha asked.

“It wouldn’t be as cool if I gave away the secret, now would it,” Elektra answered.

There was a different air about Elektra today. It was as though she genuinely did not care about Natasha’s feelings in any capacity. She was being more harsh, more cold. This past season, Elektra had started to act a lot more friendly towards her. But that was seemingly changing. While Natasha didn’t want to be friends with Elektra, she also didn’t want Eletra to torture her.

“Elektra, I don’t want this to continue,” Natasha said, leaning back against the stool.

“There’s nothing to continue,” Elektra dismissed.

“There is something. It’s the way that you treat me. I’m tired of being picked apart by you for doing absolutely nothing other than being a good dancer,” Natasha expressed.

Elektra laughed and rolled her eyes.”Oh please, I don’t hate you because you’re a good dancer. In fact, I don’t hate you at all.”

“You don’t?” Natasha asked.

“No, I just think you’re a stuck-up bitch.”

It was official: Elektra did hate her. But why the sudden switch? Why was she sucking up to Natasha to just turn around and act like this the next week? It was a confusing dilemma. The switch had happened right after their parts were changed. Maybe Elektra wasn’t lying about not having a part in the role reversal. She was probably upset about it, too, just like Bucky.

“Look, Elektra, I can understand you not liking me. Quite frankly, I don’t really like you, either. But I would really appreciate it if you would stop tormenting me,” Natasha said.

“It’s not like you’ve always been kind to me,” Elektra stated.

“And I’m sorry for that. I just don’t want to have to deal with this back and forth bullshit,” Natasha said. 

“Well you better get used to it,” Elektra said, smirking at her. “Buckle up: this is only the beginning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you so much for the continued support! Christmas (and the end of this fic) is just around the corner! I'm thinking that the next fic will be a prequel about Bucky and Steve and what exactly happened to them in high school. I'd also like to do a Tony fic with some sort of love interest, I'm just not sure who yet. Anyways, stay tuned for tomorrow's chapter where Elektra gets suspicious about Natasha and Tony.


	12. Chapter 12 - Elektra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new roles aren't playing out as well as Elektra hoped they would, so she decides to resort to some low blows.

Natasha Romanov was beginning to get on Elektra’s nerves. She felt like absolutely everything was a personal attack. Honestly, Natasha was the one who was obsessed with Natasha, not Elektra. Elektra was not too happy that Natasha had come to her house to confront her, but she’d also gone to Natasha’s house, so she couldn’t be mad at her for that. Well, she couldn’t directly express to Natasha that she was mad about it. She would let Natasha know she was mad about it through her treatment of her.

The day after Natasha stormed into her apartment, Elektra already had her Sugar Plum part down and ready to rehearse. She wasn’t confident Bucky would be as prepared as her. He seemed really upset about the parts being switched. For that, she genuinely felt bad. The reason Elektra had tried to get the parts switched in the first place was because she wanted to extend the olive branch to Natasha. Now that it was obvious that there was irreversible damage, Elektra regretted doing it in the first place.

“So, I guess we have to do this,” Bucky said, walking up to Elektra backstage.

Even though they’d just learned their part, there was a full run-through scheduled as the show premiered in two weeks. Elektra was not looking forward to it. Between the dance moms and the little kids, Nutcracker performances were always a hot mess backstage. There was always someone crying.

“Yeah, but we can do it,” Elektra said.

“We’ll see,” Bucky replied.

Elektra sighed. “Bucky, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah? For what?” Bucky prompted.

“I’m sorry for taking your role away from you without consulting you first. It was wrong of me,” Elektra apologized.

“Oh please, you’ve never been sorry for anything in your life,” Natasha said, walking over to them.

“Natasha, this conversation does not involve you,” Elektra warned.

“It does now,” Natasha said.

“You know what, I don’t want to get into this right now,” Bucky stated. “I know you guys hate each other, but neither of you hate me. So please, do this for me. Don’t start fighting with each other right now. Hold it off until Nutcracker season is over.”

“I can’t promise it that long, but I can promise it for today,” Natasha said.

“Then leave me alone,” Elektra requested.

If Elektra would’ve known all it took for Natasha to walk away from her was to request being left alone, she would’ve done so a long time ago. Maybe Bucky getting in the middle of things would turn out to be beneficial after all. Bucky was emotional and even easier to manipulate than Natasha was. 

“Is Tony watching today?” Bucky asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet to stretch his arches.

“Hell if I know,” Elektra responded. “He probably will be, actually. He’s gonna wanna make sure that he did the right thing with switching the parts.”

“Hopefully he sees that he didn’t,” Bucky muttered.

Sometimes there was collateral damage to actions, that was something Elektra and Bucky would both just have to accept.

“Bucky, you’re a great dancer. You could pull off literally any role. If you dance this well, it’ll prove to Tony that you can perform amazingly even with only a little time to learn it,” Elektra said.

Bucky blushed. “Do you really think so?”

“I do. Bucky, I honestly would refuse to dance with you if you weren’t good,” Elektra said.

Elektra was lying through her teeth. She didn’t think Bucky was an outstanding dancer. Yes, he was good and they danced well together, but he was in no way revolutionary. She just wanted him to dance with confidence and stop being pissy with her. Sometimes Elektra wondered if there was something wrong with her. It felt like she could never make, or keep, friends. Bobby was the only consistent person in her life. She’d have to make some very conscious efforts to be nice to Bucky if she wanted them to have a relationship, which she genuinely did.

“You’re really good, too,” Bucky said.

Elektra beamed at him. “Thank you. I’ll buy you a smoothie after rehearsal if we do good.” 

“That sounds great,” Bucky said.

There was a while before they had to go on stage, so Elektra just relaxed and watched all the little kid drama unfold around her. One thing she noticed was that the posse of little kids who had been following Natasha around were still following her around. Elektra had thought they only liked her because she had the coveted role. She couldn’t lie, that was part of the reason she wanted to be the Sugar Plum Fairy in the first place. There was definitely a level of clout that came with the role. Obviously Elektra would not be getting any of it. 

“So, which dance mom do you think will be the first one to have some sort of a breakdown on our first performance day?” Bucky asked, leaning back against the wall.

“Hmm, well, definitely not Clara’s mom,” Elektra said.

“Yeah, Clara is way too old for her mom to have a breakdown,” Bucky said.

In reality, the little girl dancing Clara was only twelve. That really wasn’t very old at all, but it was too old for your mom to be screaming or crying backstage. Usually the moms who were crying backstage were moms of the really little kids.

“I think it’ll be that one,” Natasha said, pointing to a mom chasing her young daughter around. It was unexplainable, but she just gave off the vibe that it didn’t take much to make her cry.

Bucky smiled. “Good choice. She definitely won’t be able to handle the pressure. Just not cut out to be a dance mom I guess.”

“Was your mom a dance mom?” Natasha asked, sliding down against the wall and to the floor.

“Not at all. I had to force her to put me in dance,” Bucky explained.

“Really?” Natasha asked, smiling.

“Really,” Bucky said. He sat down next to her and extended his legs in front of him. “It was very unheard of in my town to have a boy in dance. There was no way my parents would’ve put me there in the first place. But I was so obsessed with dance. I would dance around the house constantly. And one of the neighbor girls did dance, which I was so obsessed with. There was almost no option but to put me in dance.”

“Well I’m glad they did,” Elektra said.

“What about you? Was your mom a dance mom? Or maybe you had a dance dad?” Bucky inquired.

“Definitely neither. My parents never even came to watch my final shows, let along come to rehearsals. They put me in dance so I wouldn’t be at home,” Elektra said.

Bucky frowned. “Oh. That’s sad.”

Elektra shrugged. “It’s just the way they are. It was what they did instead of getting me a babysitter. Although I did have those as well.”

“You never talk about your family,” Bucky stated.

“Neither do you,” Elektra refuted.

“Well my parents didn’t traumatize me or anything,” Bucky said.

“Then why do you think mine did? Because you don’t talk about your parents either and allegedly they didn’t traumatize you, so then there isn’t anything that should make you think my parents were bad,” Elektra defended.

Even though Elektra’s parents hadn’t been great, she didn’t like for people outside of the family to insult them. She felt protective over them. They did their best. Or what they thought was their best at the time. And obviously her childhood hadn’t been too terrible if she was a successful adult. Successful in the terms of her career, at least. Who was Bucky to question her parents’ parenting? He wasn’t a parent and he didn’t even seem close to his parents.

“Based on the way you’ve talked about your childhood, I just assumed your parents weren’t the best,” Bucky said.

“Then tell me why you don’t talk about your parents, either,” Elektra demanded.

Bucky blushed. “It’s not like I’m making some sort of an effort to not talk about them. There’s just no reason for me to talk about them. They’re just normal parents. And my childhood wasn’t great. Not great because of them, but because I was gay and did dance.”

“And your parents didn’t help with that?” Elektra pried.

“I hid it from them, what could they do,” Bucky said.

“I feel like they should just know,” Elektra said.

Bucky responded, “Well, I guess we’ll see how well that works out for you once you become a parent.”

Bucky and Elektra continued to talk about their parents for a little while until the conversation gradually died down. It wasn’t the most pleasant conversation because they were both very defensive. No one wanted to admit it when their parents weren’t great. At least they could relate over something. Elektra would have to remember that for later.

“It was okay,” Tony stated, clicking his pen rapidly against his thumb.

“That’s all you have to say?” Elektra asked, leaning against Tony’s chair but not sitting in it.

Something about Tony’s office always made Elektra feel a little uneasy. It was probably because she knew he’d had a lot of sex in their, specifically with female company members. It seemed to her as though he had some sort of a power kink. He loved getting with company girls, whom he held a lot of power over. Not only did Tony have sex with company members in his office, he also had pictures of them on the wall. It just all added to the uncomfortableness.

“What do you want me to say?” Tony asked.

“I want you to say that you made the right decision,” Elektra answered.

Tony sighed and leaned back in his desk chair. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?” Elektra demanded.

“Because it won’t be true,” Tony said. “It’s way too soon for me to know if it was the right choice. I’ve only seen it this way once.”

“Look, I put a lot on the line to make this work,” Elektra said.

“You put a lot on the line?  _ You  _ put a lot on the line?” Tony scoffed. “Oh please, I’m the one risking my ass over this. If this doesn’t work out, it’ll mean nothing for you. It could mean my job for me. I decided to go out on a whim and listen to you, don’t make me regret it.”

“Trust me, I won’t,” Elektra said.

As Elektra peered more around the room, she noticed that there were a lot of pictures of Natasha and Tony together. More than there were of him with any other girl. Something about it felt a little off. Natasha had always insisted that she and Tony were friends, but it seemed like there may have been a little more of a backstory than just that. Elektra always loved to accuse Natasha of sleeping with Tony just to mess with her, but maybe there was some truth to that statement.

“If you do, I promise nothing good will come of it,” Tony said.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to threaten me like that,” Elektra said.

Tony smiled and leaned forward. “For the record, that was not a threat. However, if I wanted to, I could threaten you. There’s nothing to stop me.”

“And you don’t think that’s a little fucked up?” Elektra asked.

“Well I won’t be threatening you, so it doesn’t really matter how I feel about it,” Tony answered.

Okay, it was official: Tony was definitely interested in some type of power play. It seemed like he was coming onto her a little bit as well. Tony wasn’t bad looking, but Elektra was definitely not interested in pursuing a relationship with him. She wondered if there was a company member he was currently screwing around with. Most likely one of the younger girls: they were easier to manipulate. Part of Elektra wished he would have an affair with one of the dance moms just for the drama.

“You know, you’re an odd guy,” Elektra stated.

“I don’t see that as an insult,” Tony said.

“It wasn’t particularly meant as one,” Elektra said.

“So, are you excited to start rehearsal week next week?” Tony asked, changing the subject completely.

“Considering the fact that I just got a new part, no,” Elektra answered.

“A part you practically begged me for,” Tony reminded her.

Elektra rolled her eyes. “I did that just to make Natasha happy and you know it. And I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason you did it, too.”

“I did it because there’s a better romantic connection between Natasha and Alexei than you and Bucky,” Tony said. 

“Bullshit, Bucky and I are amazing,” Elektra argued.

“Bucky and you don’t have romantic chemistry. Chemistry, sure, but definitely not the sexual or romantic type. I don’t expect you to have that chemistry for obvious reasons, but you can’t be mad about me going with a different couple,” Tony said.

Elektra sighed and sat down in Tony’s chair. This was frustrating for her. She just wanted Tony to admit that following Elektra’s advice had been the right decision.

“Have you slept with Natasha before? Or are you currently sleeping with her?” Elektra demanded.

Tony’s face flushed red. “What? No, of course not.”

“See, I find that incredibly hard to believe,” Elektra said.

“She’s in a relationship, Elektra,” Tony said.

“But she wasn’t when she first came here,” Elektra stated.

“Just drop it,” Tony demanded.

Based on his reactions, it seemed that Tony and Natasha had, in fact, slept together. Why else would he be so embarrassed and defensive about it? It explained the hierarchy of the company, considering Karolina and Elektra were just as good as Tony. But Tony had always hated Elektra. And Karolina would never dream of sleeping her way to the top. Natasha had an unfair advantage because she was willing to use her sexual appeal in her favor. Elektra wasn’t going to deal with it anymore.

Elektra stood up and walked to the door. “Thank you for confirming my suspicions,” She said.

Elektra marched down the long hallways from Tony’s office to the dressing rooms. Instead of walking into her own, she went into Natasha’s. She couldn’t stand for this any longer. Natasha was sitting at her vanity, taking her hair out of the perfect bun. Elektra hated how everything about her was perfect. Everything other than her personality. There had to be some way for Elektra to get Tony and Natasha to see that they were equally as talented.

“Natasha, we need to talk,” Elektra voiced,

Natasha turned and looked at her. “I’d appreciate it if you’d knock before entering my space. What do you need?”

“I need for everything to get figured out, I can’t deal with how things are anymore.”

“What things?”  
“This obscene hierarchy that places you at the top.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, please, I know you didn’t fuck Tony because you think he’s attractive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you so much for the support! Get ready for tomorrow's chapter where Tony give Natasha and Elektra an ultimatum.


	13. Chapter 13 - Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha hears about the ultimatum and is not happy.

Elektra Natchios was a presumptuous bitch. For her to come into her space and accuse her of using sex as a manipulation tactic was absolutely unacceptable. She couldn’t stand for that. Natasha had never used sex to get something she wanted and never planned on doing so. Even though Elektra hated her, accusing her of that was low. Natasha couldn’t just let her accuse her of something that serious. She needed some sort of a comeback. But she didn’t have one. All she had was that Elektra was seemingly in love with Matt. Maybe that would work.

“Oh, I certainly did not have sex with Tony,” Natasha defended, standing up out of her chair.

“He told me differently,” Elektra said.

“Well he lied,” Natasha stated.

Tony must have lied because they certainly did not sleep with each other. Natasha had never even considered doing that. She knew he slept with a lot of the company girls, but she was not one of them. Why would he tell Elektra that they had sex? How was that beneficial to him?

“I don’t know why he would do that, there’s no motive to do that,” Elektra said.

“There is no universe in which I would have sex with Tony Stark,” Natasha stated.

“Oh, so Tony lied to me?” Elektra asked.

“That’s exactly what he did,” Natasha answered.

“He has no reason to do that,” Elektra said. “And the fact that you had sex with him explains a lot. Karolina and I are just as good as you and you know it.”

“Just because you sleep with everyone who wants to have sex with you doesn’t mean I do the same,” Natasha said.

“Oh, please, Matt is the only person who wants to sleep with you,” Elektra said.

“You’re just mad that he doesn’t want to sleep with you,” Natasha said.

“I’m very over Matt,” Elektra defended.

“Yet every time you see him you try to fuck him,” Natasha said.

Matt would never cheat on Natasha and she knew it. He was both loyal and obsessed with Natasha. But something about Elektra made her nervous. Elektra was very attractive and seductive. She’d never met anyone who could resist her charms. In that way, Natasha and Elektra were similar. Actually, they were similar in a lot of ways.

“Don’t forget that he wanted to fuck me before he wanted to fuck you,” Elektra said.

“Why do you have to ruin everything in my life?” Natasha exclaimed. “I know you hate me because I’m a better dancer than you, but for the love of god, leave my personal life out of this!”

“You’re the one who called me a whore, you can’t be mad about my rebuttal,” Elektra defended. 

Natasha scoffed. “Oh my god, you called me a whore first.”

“And that makes it okay?” Elektra asked.

“I’m very close to slapping you right now,” Natasha said, taking a step towards Elektra.

Before Natasha could resort to physical violence, Bucky walked into the room. He probably heard the commotion and had to come figure out what was going on. A part of Natasha was glad he came in before she could hit Elektra, but the other part of her had been waiting years to slap Elektra.

“What’s going on in here?” Bucky asked, stepping in between the two girls.

“She called me a whore,” Elektra and Natasha said at the same time.

Bucky gently pushed Natasha back into her chair, presumably to distance her from Elektra. “And what started it all?”

“Nat had sex with Tony,” Elektra claimed.

“What? No she didn’t,” Bucky said. “She’d never do that. And she’d have told me if she did.”

“Exactly, I’m not like that,” Natasha said.

“Then why does Tony always give you everything you want?” Elektra asked.

“Because I’m a good dancer,” Natasha said.

“And so am I,” Elektra said.

“They’re also good friends,” Bucky added.

Natasha frowned at him. “That has nothing to do with how I get good roles and you know it. I didn’t go to the Vaganova school for nothing. I have the best technique of everyone in this company.”

“If you’re so amazing, then why aren’t you dancing for a better, more reputable company?” Elektra asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Natasha shot back.

The thing about Natasha dancing with her current company was that she loved the people there. As a young dancer, she didn’t have too many options of companies to join. And with Bucky and Tony, she fit in at the company immediately. With everything going on with Elektra, she was beginning to question whether or not it was really the place for her. But she couldn’t ask Matt to just completely uproot his life for her. Or, rather, for Elektra.

“Okay, I feel like we might need to get Tony to mediate this,” Bucky stated.

“What? No. He’s biased towards her,” Elektra objected.

“Well we can’t just continue on with two of our principal dancers hating each other,” Bucky said.

“Yes, let’s go to Tony,” Natasha agreed.

Natasha felt very comfortable and at home in Tony’s office. She’d spent many hours of her life in there. Not having sex, of course. Just talking and hanging out. Tony was friends with both Natasha and Matt. Matt was friends with Tony even before Natasha was, seeing as he was one of the company’s biggest supporters. It was nice for them to have a go-to dinner guest or person to grab drinks with. His office almost felt like a second dressing room to her.

“So, you two have obviously been butting heads a lot recently,” Tony stated.

“That’s an understatement,” Natasha said.

“And this isn’t a new occurrence,” Elektra said. “We’ve never gotten along with each other.”

Tony leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Interesting. Well, I can’t have that. I don’t like company drama. I won’t allow for company drama to be happening while I’m in charge.”

“So how do you suggest we fix this?” Natasha inquired.

“Oh, I don’t care how you fix it. But if it isn’t at least mostly cleared up by the time our Nutcracker performances are over, I’m firing one of you,” Tony threatened. 

“I can’t deal with this,” Natasha vented, walking into her rehearsal studio with Alexei.

“You need to calm down and just let it go,” Alexei advised.

“I can’t,” Natasha said. “I can’t risk getting fired.”

“Tony loves you, he would never be the one he’d fire,” Alexei said.

Alexei was starting to become one of Natasha’s friends. Being partners with him made her remember how great he was. He had gorgeous lines and was a very supportive guy. He was very much like the hometown guy in a Hallmark movie, though Natasha would never dream of dating him. Natasha could never replace Matt. Today Alexei and Natasha had decided to match their outfits, with Natasha in a lilac leotard and Alexei in lilac biker shorts. Now that they were the Snow King and Queen, they probably should’ve been in white. But they’d be in those costumes soon enough.

“But we only have two weeks to become civil with each other and with everything she’s done, I’m not confident I can get there,” Natasha said.

“Natasha, I don’t think you’ve ever not been able to do something in your life,” Alexei said.

Natasha smiled. “Well thanks for the confidence boost.”

“It’s just the truth,” Alexei said. “You can get along with anyone you want to if you just try. You’re charming and personable.”

“I think she is, too. Just not to me. ”

Ever since they started rehearsing for Snow instead of Sugar Plum, they’d stopped working with Maria. Or, rather, Maria had stopped working with them. She’d still been working on the Sugar Plum stuff with Bucky and Elektra. It stung a little bit to know that Maria was working with them, but she’d promised to come and rehearse Alexei and Natasha sometime during the week. The only question was when. Well, even Maria didn’t know that answer. It was really all dependent on when Elektra and Bucky could pick up their dances. Both of them were great dancers, but Natasha and Alexei just learned dances faster than they could.

“Okay, I’d like to rehearse the lift today,” Alexei said. “I feel like I’m just not really hitting it.”

“We can do that,” Natasha said.

Alexei and Natasha began with her two grand jetes and then went through the entire dance. The lift went much better than the last times they’d rehearsed it. Natasha would honestly admit her fault in that, as she had recently been dead weight. The Elektra situation had just been weighing too heavily on her mind recently. Maybe clearing it up would help both of their performances, ultimately making the show better. That would explain why Tony was so insistent on them fixing it.

“Your turns were crazy amazing in that,” Alexei enthused, picking up Natasha and spinning her around.

Natasha laughed. “Thank you. And you were amazing at everything, as always.”

“I’d hope so, I mainly just hold onto you the entire time,” Alexei said. 

“You lift me quite a bit, that’s something you could mess up,” Natasha stated.

“Hey, you’re the one who was messing up our lifts,” Alexei said, smiling at her.

“I can’t argue with that,” Natasha said. “I’m very glad we got switched to the more romantic characters. And to a dance that actually has lifts, even if I was fucking them up earlier.”

“This is the perfect dance for the two of us,” Alexei said.

“It’ll be even more perfect when we have a twelve year old sitting behind us, staring at us the entire time,” Natasha said.

Alexei smiled at her. “Hey, Clara is cute this year. Don’t hate on her.”

“I just always feel so awkward with scenes where there’s someone just… watching me,” Natasha stated. “But it happens in every single ballet I’ve performed in. It was especially bad in Swan Lake, honestly.”

“Swan Lake is so amazing though, I love it. I’m really glad we had the opportunity to perform it together: I did feel bad for Bucky, though,” Alexei said.

“I feel bad that he’s been last minute switched out for you in the past two shows. I know it bothers him a lot,” Natasha stated.

Alexei frowned. “Oh. Well, maybe I should go talk to him and apologize. I feel bad that it keeps happening. I want him to know that I feel bad.”

“Honestly, I’d wait a while to do that if I were you,” Natasha advised. “He’s still pretty upset about it. I’d wait until after Nutcracker season is done.”

“I have a different idea,” Alexei said.

“What is it?” Natasha asked.

“You could invite both Bucky and I over. Maybe even Elektra. Then we can all hang out and learn to get along,” Alexei suggested.

“I guess we could do that, but it might turn into a shit show,” Natasha said.

“It’s already a shit show, how much worse can it get.”

Bucky and Elektra were still working on the beginning of the Sugar Plum variation when Natasha and Alexei walked in. It seemed as though they were struggling a little bit. Natasha considered offering to help, but ultimately decided against it: it would likely be taken in an offensive manner. They stood in the doorway, waiting for them to finish and notice them standing there. It only took about two minutes before Bucky glanced in their direction, his face lighting up upon seeing Natasha.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Bucky asked.

“We had a proposition,” Natasha said.

Elektra scoffed and rolled her eyes. Obviously she was not taking what Tony had said seriously. Or she was willing to risk being fired for the chance that Natasha may be fired. She was wearing the classic black leotard and pink tights today, which Natasha found humor in. It made her look like the young dancers she was obviously trying so hard to become a mentor towards. Elektra was surely not a good role model.

“So, what is this _ proposition _ ?” Elektra asked in a mocking tone.

“Come over to my place on Saturday night, both of you,” Natasha invited.

“The week before our show? No thanks,” Elektra turned down.

“Actually, next week is our dress rehearsal week,” Bucky said. “Besides, do you really want Tony to fire you? This would prove to him that the two of you can get along.”

Elektra sighed. “Yeah, fine. I suppose I’ll come. Could I at least bring my boyfriend along or something?”

“Of course. And Bucky, bring Steve along, too,” Natasha said.

“I can do that. You know, I think he’s actually at your place right now, hanging out with Matt,” Bucky stated.

Natasha smiled at him. “Yeah, that is true. I think it’s very cute.”

“Gotta love a good bromance,” Alexei said.

Steve had just left when Natasha got home to her apartment. She was really happy that Matt had been able to enjoy a day off with one of his friends. Well, recently all his days had been off days. Natasha had no idea what he did while he was at home, not working. He couldn’t really watch tv in the way a sighted person could. And his only hobby was watching ballet. His whole life practically revolved around his job. Well, and Natasha, of course.

“How was rehearsal?” Matt asked from his usual spot on the couch.

Natasha sat down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Well, Tony threatened Elektra and I by saying if we don’t make up before the show closes, he’ll fire one of us.”

“Wait, what?” Matt asked, turning to look at her.

“I doubt he’d actually do it,” Natasha said.

“Nat, this isn’t something to just brush off,” Matt said. “He very well could fire one of you. This feud is going too far: you need to get along with Elektra.”

“I’m sorry, Matt, but I don’t really think that you’re the person who should be giving me career advice right now,” Natasha said.

“That was low,” Matt said.

Even though it was a low blow, Matt didn’t seem at all hurt or upset. He’d probably just learned how to deal with the stupid things Natasha said. He knew that she didn’t mean it and that she loved him more than she loved anything else. In fact, as soon as she’d made the job about his career, she’d regretted it. It’d taken a long time for Matt to open up to her about it, so it was unfair of Natasha to weaponize it against him.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Natasha apologized.

“Besides, it isn’t my fault that I’m not working right now,” Matt defended.

“Then whose fault is it?” Natasha asked.

“Some lady wrote a negative Yelp review. Very very negative. And now no one wants us to represent them,” Matt explained.

Natasha frowned. “Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry.”

Matt shrugged. “It’s okay, sometimes it’s nice to get a break.”

“Well, I’m going to extend the olive branch to Elektra by having her over on Saturday,” Natasha explained.

“Are you sure that’s the best idea? She’s been pretty brutal in the past,” Matt warned.

“It’ll be okay, Bucky and Alexei are going to come over as well. Plus, Elektra is going to bring her boyfriend and Bucky is going to bring Steve. I think having her boyfriend here will make her a little more chill,” Natasha said.

“You know, I hope you’re right about that,” Matt said.

As it turned out, Natasha was only a little bit right about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you for continuing to read and support! I can't believe how fast Christmas is approaching. I was planning on doing some one-shots all throughout December, but that fell through with how much work I've been putting into this. No promises, but I might be uploading one or more in the next two days. Any who, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and stay tuned for the next chapter to see how Nat's get together goes.


	14. Chapter 14 - Elektra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elektra goes to Natasha's party and tries to figure out her course of action.

Natasha Romanov was playing with fire. Inviting Elektra over to her apartment to try and make peace was a bold move. Honestly, Elektra didn’t really want to make peace. She had been planning on just taking the chance of getting fired with the hope that Natasha would be the one to get fired. Although Natasha was Tony’s favorite, Elektra was confident she could outperform Natasha. Now that Natasha was obviously trying to make sure neither of them would get fired, she was beginning to rethink her decision. On one hand, it showed that Natasha was scared of being fired and therefore it wasn’t guaranteed that Elektra would be the one to go. On the other hand, it was possible that Natasha was just trying to look out for Elektra and not get her fired. She didn’t know which path to take.

Since Natasha had said it would be okay for her to bring Bobby along, she was going to bring Bobby along. She needed someone to defend her when Natasha began to attack her. Someone other than herself. Elektra and Bobby were going to show up two minutes after the invitation and bring some Christmas cookies. Since they lived in the same apartment building and already had cookies, it wouldn’t be hard. They just had to make sure that the timing was perfect. They wanted to arrive after Bucky and Steve but before Alexei.

Walking into Natasha’s apartment, Elektra realized that she had timed it perfectly. Steve and Bucky were sitting on the couch talking to Matt, Natasha was making drinks in the kitchen, and Alexei was nowhere to be seen. Elektra walked to the kitchen and set a platter of Christmas cookies on the bar.

“I thought we might need some more snacks,” Elektra stated.

“Yeah, thank you,” Natasha said.

That was the nicest Natasha had been to her in a long time. Normally she would probably say that they didn’t need more food or just ignore her all together. This was some sort of progress on Natasha’s part. Now Elektra just had to decide if she would be civil back.

“Would you like something to drink?” Natasha asked, carrying out drinks to Steve and Bucky.

“Just some water would be good for Bobby and I,” Elektra said.

“I can do that,” Natasha said.

“Your apartment is really lovely,” Elektra complimented.

Natasha smiled. “Yeah, it probably looks just about as good as yours does.”

“Similar, but mine is a loft,” Elektra said.

“That must be nice,” Natasha said.

“Oh, I love it,” Elektra said. “But I can’t see it being the place I live forever.”

Natasha handed bottles of water to both Elektra and Bobby. “Oh? Why not?”

“Well, if we want to have kids, we definitely cannot live in a loft,” Elektra explained.

Currently, Elektra had no clue if she and Bobby were going to have kids or not. It seemed like Bobby was interested in doing it. Elektra was very on the fence. She’d have to take a lot of time off of her job, which she didn’t want to do. The idea of having a child, however, seemed nice. Especially around Christmas time. It would be awesome to have a kid to give that Christmas magic to. It was a big decision that they’d have to spend a lot more time figuring out.

“We haven’t really thought about that yet, but I guess we couldn’t really live here with kids, either,” Natasha said.

“Shit,” Bucky said from the living room. “I never even thought about that. I wanted to get a place here, but I also definitely want kids. Those are not things that can coexist.”

“I think there are apartments with multiple bedrooms here,” Natasha informed.

“There probably are. They just weren’t something I was looking for, so I don’t know for sure,” Elektra said.

“I mean, it shouldn’t be too big of a deal,” Steve stated. “Leases aren’t for that long and it isn’t like we’ll be having kids anytime soon.”

“Speak for yourself,” Bucky said.

“We both work and adoption is a long process. We can’t have kids soon,” Steve stated.

Bucky pouted. “It sucks.”

“I know how you feel,” Bobby sympathized. “I want kids as soon as possible, honestly. But with Elektra’s job, I know that’s just not possible. It’ll take a long time.”

“It would be easy to just take a season off, Tony can’t fire someone for being pregnant,” Natasha said.

Elektra blushed. “Let’s change the subject.”

Having kids was not a topic any young woman wanted to linger on for too long. There was so much pressure to start popping out kids right away at age twenty. Oftentimes older women felt the need to insert themselves into the business of younger women. Elektra was fed up with it. She was tired of having to tell people that she wasn’t trying to have a baby and she didn’t know when she would be trying. It made her feel uncomfortable.

Before they could even change the subject, Alexei walked into the apartment. It was a little late, but Elektra couldn’t blame him. He lived on the other side of town and probably had a busy life.

“Sorry I’m late,” Alexei said, walking into the kitchen. “I took the bus and it just… well, it just turned into a hot mess.”

Natasha smiled at him. “I get it, that’s okay. We were just talking about having kids.”

Elektra groaned. “I thought we agreed to not talk about this anymore. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We certainly don’t have to,” Alexei said.

“You know, I’m feeling really outnumbered by company members here,” Matt stated, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

“You should get a job at the company,” Steve suggested. “They definitely have a legal team of at least one person. And Tony loves you, he’d definitely give you a job.”

“That’s not really the type of law that I practice,” Matt replied.

“But it could be,” Steve said, wiggling his eyebrows at Matt.

Steve was a pit orchestra member so Elektra didn’t know him very well. She never really spent much time with anyone who worked from the company other than the actual company dancers. In fact, the only reason she really knew who Steve was was through Bucky. Steve and Bucky were childhood friends who had had a major falling out. Due to that, Bucky had hated Steve for a long time and was very vocal about it. Maybe Elektra and Natasha’s relationship could be like that: starting with hatred and ending with closeness. Though Elektra wasn’t sure she’d like that.

“You know, we might not all work for the company, but is everyone planning on going to the Christmas company party after the last Nutcracker performance?” Steve asked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Matt said.

“I never go,” Alexei stated.

“Oh? Why not?” Elektra asked.

Alexei shrugged. “I don’t know. I just usually want to go home and shower and go to bed after I perform.”

“Oh, I always come home and shower and change before going back to the party,” Natasha said.

“So do I,” Elektra agreed.

Elektra was glad to have something in common with Natasha, even something as basic and simple as showering before the holiday party. It would make it easier for them to get along for Tony. Yes, Elektra had decided to not take the risk of getting fired. Steve talking about how Tony would easily give Matt a job made Elektra realize how close Natasha and Tony were. There was no way Natasha would get fired over Elektra. It didn’t make sense in the hierarchy she was so upset over.

Elektra sat down on one of Natasha’s barstools and nibbled at a cookie. She wasn’t hungry, but she was a little anxious. She needed something to think about other than work.

“Let’s talk about stuff that isn’t related to work,” Elektra suggested. 

“It’s such a huge part of our lives: what do you suggest we talk about instead?” Bucky asked.

Elektra pondered the question for a moment before saying, “Christmas.”

“I, for one, am not really going to do anything to celebrate,” Alexei said. “My parents are in Illinois and with Nutcracker season, I just don’t really have the time to go down and see them. And they’re kinda old, they aren’t going to want to drive. I’ll probably just order in some food and watch a move. Not a Christmas movie, though.”

“Well, Steve and I are going to spend it at his place. And I think we’ll go back to our hometown to see our families the day after Christmas. Sam will be gone, so we’ll be at his place. Probably won’t have too many gifts to open,” Bucky said.

“Nat and I are the same way with gifts,” Matt said. “We don’t really get each other that much. I guess we just buy each other a lot of stuff throughout the year so it doesn’t feel like that big of a deal. But obviously we won’t go see my family and this year we aren’t going to see hers either.”

Elektra blushed. “Oh gosh, we’re the only people who really do gifts, then. I always like to go all out. The bigger and more, the better. I already did all my shopping, I accumulate it throughout the entire year. Then we’ll open them all up on Christmas morning. We’re not going to go see family or anything like that. We’ll just eat a big breakfast and spend our morning opening presents.”

“You know, sometimes I wish that we did more with presents,” Natasha said.

“Don’t say that,” Matt said. “You know I’d go all out for you if you wanted me to.”

Natasha smiled at him. “Oh, I know. You’re perfect.”

Elektra felt as though she and Natasha were fine with each other by the end of the evening. There had been no sort of fighting or anything. Because it was seemingly okay, Elektra decided that she would take the safe route. Natasha getting fired was too big of a risk. If Elektra was the one to get fired, she didn’t know what she would do with her life. Since there was no longer any fighting, dress rehearsal week went by extremely quickly. Nothing very interesting happened. The little kids continued to trail Natasha around, not Elektra. It was performance week before she knew it: which also aligned with Christmas week.

The first Nutcracker performance was December 22, so Elektra had to be completely ready to both perform and celebrate Christmas by then. Her performance was ready, but she felt a little shaky about it. They’d just switched roles, so they didn’t have as much time to prepare as most of the other dancers. Regardless, she was going to prove to Tony that she deserved to be there. She wasn’t just going to show him, she’d straight up tell him. 

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the show right now?” Tony asked as Elektra walked into his office.

“I could say the same to you,” Elektra stated. “And I am ready, just look at me.”

Elektra was wearing her full Sugar Plum Fairy costume, complete with both hair and makeup. If she was being honest, she looked amazing. Part of her was glad she wasn’t the Snow Queen anymore: she didn’t look that great in white. 

“I’m also ready, this is what I'm wearing,” Tony said.

“It’s not a bad look,” Elektra said.

Tony was wearing a suit. Just a suit. It was too basic to even try to describe. She did have to admit, though, he did look pretty good in it. 

“So, what brings you here?” Tony asked, straightening his tie in the mirror he kept on his desk.

“I wanted to tell you about the situation with Natasha,” Elektra stated.

“Oh?” Tony asked, raising an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

He gestured for her to sit down, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to mess up her costuming or be there too long.

“We’ve made up. We’re all good now. Practically friends,” Elektra said.

“Practically friends, eh?” Tony asked. “Isn’t that ironic? You started out hating each other and now you’re practically friends.”

“Yes, that is what I said,” Elektra said.

“Well I’m taking the credit for it,” Tony stated.

Elektra rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure, Tony. You can take the credit but we all know it was Natasha and I who put in the work.”

“You only did it because I threatened you,” Tony stated.

“You know, I really don’t think that’s something to brag about,” Elektra snorted.

“For the record, I would have fired her, not you.”

There was often a party after the first performance of a show as well as one after the last performance of the show, but with Christmas so close, they only ever did one after the last performance of the Nutcracker. Since there wasn’t any event she had to attend, Elektra decided that her and Bobby would do something fun. They were going to get some drive-thru fast food and eat it in their apartment. It was about ten by the time they made it to McDonalds, but dancing made Elektra hungry.

Elektra got her go-to order; two McChickens, a caramel frappe, and a large fry. It might have seemed like a lot of food, and it was, but it was good food. Besides, she’d just finished a very athletic performance. Bobby just ordered a medium fry and ten nuggets. Compared to Elektra’s, it was a bland. She was annoyed that he had such a boring order, but she didn’t have anyone else to come get McDonalds with. Maybe she could get it with Natasha in the future.

“That was a really great performance, baby,” Bobby said as they brought their takeout bags into their apartment. Yes, it was now theirs, not hers.

“I’m glad you thought so. I think it’ll get better as the shows go on. Bucky and I still have a few kinks to work out,” Elektra said.

“I couldn’t tell,” Bobby said. “Honestly, I’m glad that you got switched to Sugar Plum Fairy. I think I enjoyed it more than I would have enjoyed you doing the Snow Queen.”

Elektra smiled. “That’s sweet. Thank you, darling.”

“Anything for my baby,” He said, smiling at her.

Though she had initially been hesitant about Bobby moving in with her, Elektra was so glad that she’d finally given in. He was absolutely amazing. Every single morning, he woke up before her and made her a smoothie and egg whites. He also often made dinner. It was the perfect life. Elektra was very well taken care of. Sometimes she felt like Bobby gave so much and got nothing in return. She knew she wasn’t the best girlfriend. That’s why she had heaps of presents under the tree. Elektra wasn’t the best at showing her love through words, but she could definitely do it through her wallet.

“So, what other performances are you coming to?” Elektra asked, starting her first McChicken.

“Just the last one. The one on Christmas Eve,” Bobby said.

“I think you should be very excited for the party after,” Elektra stated. “It’s going to be so amazing now that Natasha and I can be civil.”

“I think you guys would make very good friends. You’re similar in more ways than I think you can see,” Bobby said.

“Well, we’re on the track to becoming friends,” Elektra said.

Ever since she’d talked to Tony before the show, Elektra’s mind had been distracted. She couldn’t help but thinking that she’d made the wrong choice. Of course, that was assuming he’d told her the truth. The gamble would have been worth it in this case. But now she could become friends with Natasha. But what was better: being friends with Natasha or never having to see her again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I can't believe tomorrow is the final chapter! Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate. Stay tuned for tomorrow's chapter that wraps everything up.


	15. Chapter 15 - Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha does her final performance and, most importantly, attends the after-party.

Elektra Natchios was an okay bitch. Yeah, maybe she still could be a bitch, but it certainly wasn’t as bad. For some reason, giving her role up to Natasha made Elektra a lot more bearable. The threat from Tony probably helped, too. It was beginning to feel like she was living a normal, adult life. Rivalries were a thing for children. Now that Bucky wasn’t always complaining about Steve and Elektra wasn’t tormenting her, Natasha felt like she could live a normal life. At least, she could live a normal life through the Nutcracker season.

The first performances went amazingly well. Natasha felt like she and Alexei were made to be the Snow King and Queen. Something about that dance was absolutely magical. It felt like they weren’t even performing, it was just them. Natasha was ecstatic to find a new pas de deux partner as good as the one she now had. A bond had also grown between her and Alexei. They weren’t just partners, they were friends.

Matt had come to every single one of her performances, as usual. The most important performance for him to attend was the last one on Christmas Eve. After all, it had the big Christmas party afterwards. Normally Natasha would celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, but with the performance and party, they’d decided to celebrate on Christmas day this year. Besides, they didn’t have very many presents to open.

On the morning of a performance day, Natasha always started out with a protein smoothie. It felt energizing yet healthy. She’d then do a quick warmup and an extensive stretch session. Depending on the time she had to be at the studio, she usually had a salad or a wrap for lunch before doing a quick ab workout. Working out was a big part of her job. Then she would go to the studio and do her routine there.

When Natasha arrived at the company, she had a mission: do her hair and makeup. Before the last performance, she’d barely had enough time to get that all done. But when she walked into her dressing room, Bucky was already in there, sitting at her vanity.

“Hi,” Natasha said, setting her bag down on the ground.

“Merry Christmas,” Bucky said, smiling at her.

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Natasha said. “I see you’re already ready for the performance.”

Bucky smiled. “But I’m even more ready for the party after.”

“Oh, me too,” Natasha stated. “I have the cutest dress ever picked out for this year. And I heard Tony bought good alcohol and a chocolate fountain. But I’m mainly just excited to hang out with Matt. During the preparation for any show I feel like I’m just always busy.”

Bucky nodded. “You see, that’s the nice thing with Steve. Since we work at the same place, we have a lot of opportunities to see each other. We just don’t live together.”

“Yet,” Natasha added.

Bucky stood up from her vanity so she could sit down. She did just that and began doing her hair.

“So, is tonight your night alone with Steve at his place?” Natasha asked, sewing in her headpiece.

Bucky smiled and blushed. “Yeah, it is. I’m super excited. It’s gonna be a good night.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will be.”

Natasha had rushed through her hair and makeup to ensure she had enough time. Even if it was rushed, it didn’t look like it. She’d done some dance competitions back in her day which got her ready for all the quick looks. Natasha changed into her costume as soon as her makeup was done and started to prepare her pointe shoes. Seeing Bucky all ready made her feel like she needed to rush.

Before the show started, there were a few things Natasha wanted to do. She wanted to do a quick barre warm up, then go see both Tony and Alexei. Separately, of course. Natasha had grown to really love Alexei. He was a sweet guy and Natasha could tell that Matt liked him, too. It was always a bonus when Natasha and Matt both liked a person. That’s the way it was with Tony, as well.

“Tonight’s the big night, aye?” Tony asked as Natasha walked into his office.

Natasha smiled and sat in one of his chairs. “Yeah, it is. I’m extremely excited for the party tonight. That’s what gets me through the show. I’ve grown to hate the Nutcracker through my years performing it.”

“Really? I still love it,” Tony stated.

“You aren’t that surrounded by it, thought,” Natasha said. “You don’t have to go to every single rehearsal and everything.”

“That’s true. But I deal with a lot of stuff behind the scenes,” Tony said.

Tony’s job was undoubtedly a hard one. He had the power to make any type of executive decision he desired. Every new hire had to be approved by him. Natasha could never do that job. Especially the really hard parts like replacing Bucky last minute. But he still didn’t get the same Nutcracker experience the actual company members did. Of course he still liked the show, his life didn’t revolve around it in the same way.

“I know. We appreciate you. I’m excited for the party tonight,” Natasha said.

“I bought only the finest things for you to enjoy,” Tony said, smiling at her.

“As always,” Natasha responded.

“You know, I am looking to find a girl soon,” Tony said. “I’m thinking that tonight might be the night.”

Natasha laughed. “Tony, everyone there is someone who you already know. You aren’t going to discover some new girl to fall in love with.”

“Well you didn’t have to go and crush my Hallmark movie dreams,” Tony joked.

“I should go. I need to talk to Alexei before the performance,” Natasha said.

“Break a leg.”

Alexei had a very bland dressing room, similar to how Bucky’s had previously been. The only thing that he had that was in any way personalized was a picture of his little calico cat on the vanity. Natasha should have gotten him a Christmas present that would make his dressing room a little more comfortable for him. Even a different chair for his vanity would be nice. Maybe she’d have to get him some sort of late Christmas gift.

“Hi,” Natasha greeted, walking into Alexei’s dressing room.

Alexei was sitting at his vanity and perfecting his hair. “Oh, hey, Nat. What brings you here?”

“I just wanted to see you before we have to go on stage,” Natasha said.

“For what reason?” Alexei asked.

Natasha smiled and shrugged. “I dunno, just to see you. You’re my friend, it isn’t weird to want to talk to you.”

Alexei blushed. “We’re friends?”

“Of course,” Natasha said. “Or, at least I thought so. If you don’t want to be friends with me, we don’t have to be friends.”

“No no, I do want to be friends with you. I just didn’t realize that that was something that you wanted,” Alexei said.

Natasha beamed at him. “Well of course I do, you’re great.”

“Are you excited for the show tonight?” Alexei asked.

“Thrilled,” Natasha said, sarcastically.

“I’m actually kinda excited,” Alexei said. “I mean, it’s the last show, which I always find the most fun. And it’ll be followed by the party.”

“Are you going home in between the end of the show and the start of the party?” Natasha asked, leaning against the wall.

“Oh, of course. I get really sweaty and stuff during the shows, so I have to shower and get fresh beforehand. And I don’t want to bring my nice clothes here and leave them unaccompanied in my dressing room while I perform,” Alexei answered.

Natasha smiled. “I wouldn’t trust all these crazy dance moms, either.”

Alexei sighed and sprayed his hair with hair spray. “I am so ready for them to be gone. I would be so much more okay with performing this show if it didn’t include annoying ass kids and their batshit crazy moms.”

“I feel the exact same way,” Natasha said.

The Snow Queen and Snow King costumes were absolutely stunning. They were all white and looked just magical. Natasha was very confident in the outfit because she felt as though it really showcased her amazing technique. And the same could be said for Alexei. Out of all the company members, they were the two with the best technique. Of course, they also had attended the Vaganova ballet school. Despite its weird weight rules, it was pretty much the best place to learn to dance. Some days Natasha regretted not staying in Russia and vying for a Bolshoi company spot.

“I don’t feel like dancing tonight, I just want to have a party and celebrate Christmas,” Natasha said.

“I feel like I’ve never been able to really enjoy a Christmas,” Alexei stated.

“Oh? Why?” Natasha inquired.

“I just feel like it’s always centered around dancing,” Alexei explained. “I’m either dealing with the Nutcracker or with keeping up my training. This job literally doesn’t stop. When we aren’t at work, we’re stretching or working out or doing barre exercises to perfect our technique. And when we aren’t doing that, we’re going over our dances in our head and just thinking about work. I feel like I haven’t had time off dance since I was ten.”

“I feel the same way,” Natasha sympathized.

Though Natasha did love her job, it did sometimes get exhausting. Alexei had really summed it up perfectly. Even when she wasn’t actively at work, she was in some way working. It was a literal full-time job. It would be nice to just have even a week where she didn’t have to do anything for work or think about anything related to work. But that was nearly impossible.

“You know, maybe we should do some sort of a get-away sometime,” Natasha suggested.

“Yeah? And how do you suggest we do that?” Alexei asked.

“We could get a little house somewhere,” Natasha began. “Some sort of rental situation. Then we get some of our friends together and just go. We can discover a city, eat out, and just not care about what we’re eating or making sure we’re working out and stretching. Steve, Bucky, Matt and I did a little road trip after Swan Lake, but it was with the intent of going to see a ballet. While I love ballet with all of my heart, I do agree that we need a break.”

“I would absolutely love to go on some sort of a vacation like that,” Alexei said.

“Then let’s do it.”

The performance went just about as expected. Natasha and Alexei hit all of their moves, including the lifts they struggled so much with in the beginning. Or, rather, Natasha struggled so much with in the beginning. Even though they had no real romantic chemistry, they did on stage. Based on that performance, Natasha was expecting Tony and Maria to give them the leads in the next ballet. Maybe even choose the next ballet especially for them. After the curtain call was done and all the little kids and dance moms had left, Natasha and Matt went home to get ready for the after party.

If there was one thing Natasha loved to do, it was play up her sex appeal. She had picked out an emerald green bodycon mini dress to wear to the company party. Even though it was her job, she knew all the girls would be dressed in similar outfits. She was also going to slap on some fake lashes and a dark red lipstick and call it a look. Matt was literally just wearing dress pants with an emerald green button down tucked into it. Natasha had picked it out so it would match, but it was still relatively bland.

When they walked into the party, they were definitely the best dressed couple. Though Tony was definitely dressed extremely well. Natasha felt like she was walking on air. She could already tell it was going to be a great night. At least, that’s what she thought until Elektra walked over to her.

Elektra was wearing a black mini dress that rivaled her own. She looked extremely sexy in it, Natasha had to admit. She had a red lipstick on that looked almost the same as the color Natasha had on. Matt had said that they were similar people, and Natasha was, begrudgingly, beginning to think that he was correct.

“Hi,” Elektra greeted, walking up to Natasha. “Your performance was really good tonight.”

“Good enough that I wouldn’t have been the one to get fired?” Natasha asked.

“Oh, Tony already told me that you would’ve been the one to be fired,” Elektra said as nonchalantly as she could.

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure.”

There was almost no chance Tony would have told Elektra that. He would’ve known how dangerous it would be to stroke her ego like that. On the other hand, it could be some sort of weird mind games he was experimenting with. Tony would never fire Natasha, even if his life depended on it. He had said to her many times that she was his favorite dancer that he had ever worked with.

“Even if you choose not to believe me, he did say it,” Elektra said. “Regardless, I am glad that we decided to make up and not risk either of us getting fired.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Are you actually?”

“Yes, I feel like we have potential to actually be friends,” Elektra stated.

The party was absolutely perfect between the giant chocolate fountain and the expensive alcohol Tony had provided. It was perhaps the best after-show party that Tony had ever thrown. And now, here she was, making friendly conversation with her previous rival.

“We have that potential, it’s just up to us whether or not we want to use it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you so much for reading this far! It's been a lot of work for me to upload chapters daily, so I definitely think that my next story will have a once a week or twice a week schedule. It will most likely start being uploaded in late January. I'm sad to see this story done and hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Stay tuned for tomorrow's chapter to see the audition from Elektra's point of view.


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